Preamble

The House met at Eleven 0'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGE FROM THE KING

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Captain SNOW) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address, as followeth:

I have received your Address praying that the Order in Council, dated 16th November, 1945, made under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts, 1939 to 1945, amending Regulation 42CA of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, be annulled.

I shall give directions in accordance with your Address.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Teachers' Training (Universities' Contribution)

Mr. R. A. Butler: asked the Minister of Education what arrangement has been made with the universities with regard to their contribution towards the training of future teachers.

The Minister of Education (Miss Wilkinson): I am actively working on this question which necessitates consultation with a number of the interests concerned. I will make a statement to Parliament on the matter as soon as it is possible to do so.

One-Teacher Rural Schools

Mr. R. A. Butler: asked the Minister of Education whether, in view of the attitude being adopted by certain county local educational authorities towards the

closing of one-teacher rural schools, she will make it clear that such a policy will not be approved.

Miss Wilkinson: In view of the different conditions that apply in different areas and localities, I am satisfied that no policy applicable to all one-teacher rural schools should be laid down by my Department; but I shall take steps to ensure that authorities' proposals in this matter are examined in the light of all the relevant considerations, which as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, were discussed in the Ministry's pamphlet on "The Nation's Schools."

Demobilisation

Mr. Haydn Davies: asked the Minister of Education how many trained certificated schoolmasters are known by her Department to have entered the Armed Forces; and how many have returned to the schools under Class A and Class B releases, respectively, up to date.

Miss Wilkinson: 20,300 teachers have been identified in His Majesty's Forces by arrangements made between my Department and the Service Departments. This total includes all teachers who left schools recognisedby my Department to Join the Forces, and not only certificated teachers. I have no information about the number released under Class A, but up to mid-November 3,974 teachers had been released under Class B and returned to the schools.

Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that this rate is fast enough, and that the Services are not retaining school-masters who could more usefully be employed in the schools?

Miss Wilkinson: That is not a question for me. All that I am concerned about is that I am getting the rate promised to me by the Ministry of Labour in accordance with the priorities worked out.

Mr. Lindsay: asked the Minister of Education how many Class B teachers have now been released from the Services; and how many prospective teachers are now being trained in emergency colleges.

Miss Wilkinson: 4,747 teachers have been released from the Services under Class B up to 30th November. No new emergency colleges for teachers have been


opened in the last fortnight, and the number of students in training therefore remains as given in the reply to the hon. Member on 6th December.

Mr. Lindsay: Is the right hon. Lady satisfied, in view of the fact that she said she hoped 10,000 would be out before the end of this year and that at this rate that cannot happen? Is she satisfied that further manpower cannot be obtained? Is she aware that we wish to strengthen her hand against the Service Departments, and that her answer will not be received with satisfaction in the educational world?

Miss Wilkinson: Ihave tried to explain to the House what the position is. I am sorry if I have given any impression of discourtesy, but hon. Members must be willing to hear the truth sometimes.

Mr. Stokes: Always.

Miss Wilkinson: We are adding very greatly to our staff, but there are limits to the speed with which we can absorb staff.

Maintained Schools (Freedom)

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: askedthe Minister of Education whether she has yet sent out any circular to local education authorities and governing bodies advising them to accord the maximum freedom to individual schools.

Miss Wilkinson: I would refer the hon. Member to the White Paper on Principles of Government for Maintained Secondary Schools, issued in 1944, which indicates the general views of my Department in this matter. I am considering what further guidance, if any, can appropriately be given in the matter.

Mr. Lindsay: If I send my right hon. Friend a concrete list of points affecting maintained schools, will she consider them in the light of that reply?

Miss Wilkinson: I shall be delighted, but I would remind the hon. Member that in speeches I have made recently I have stressed the importance of according the widest possible freedom to headmasters to make experiments in their schools.

Malvern College (Release)

Major Conant: asked the Minister of Education whether she will give an assurance that Malvern College will be

enabled to return to its own buildings at Malvern in September, 1946, as was promised by her Department last September.

Miss Wilkinson: Allthe Departments concerned are collaborating to free the Malvern College buildings, which are at present occupied for the purpose of urgent scientific work of high priority, with the least possible delay. I can give an assurance that it will be possible for Malvern College to resume its activities in at least a part of its own buildings in September, 1946, provided that a measure of inconvenience can be accepted by the college authorities.

Major Conant: May I ask the right hon. Lady to bear in mind that as a result of previous undertakings given by her Department contracts have been entered into with a large number of parents in two large schools, and will she do what she can to speed things up?

Miss Wilkinson: I am very conscious of that; we had a conference at my Ministry last night with all the others Ministers concerned, and it is not a simple matter, because of the high priority of the important scientific work that is being done there. A part of the premises will, however, definitely be freed.

Boarding Schools

Mr. King: asked the Minister of Education whether, having regard to the fact that the responsibilities of local education authorities are confined to children in their own area and that it is now generally accepted by her as desirable that boarding schools should draw pupils of all types from differing localities, she will consider establishing boarding schools under the direct or indirect control of her Department.

Miss Wilkinson: The powers of local education authorities include the payment of contributions in respect of pupils educated at schools outside their area and of fees and expenses at direct grant and, in approved cases, independent schools. My Department has already pressed upon authorities the importance of meeting reasonable wishes of parents in this matter and of preserving so far as possible the traditions of particular county and voluntary schools; and in respect of other schools I am prepared to consider any proposals that require my approval.In


this, as in other matters, I rely on the goodwill and co-operation of local education authorities and governing bodies, and I see no occasion for any departure from the general principles laid down in the Education Act for the establishment and conduct of grant-aided schools.

Development Plans (Publication)

Mr. King: asked the Minister of Education whether she will ensure that education development plans which are submitted to her by local education authorities, will, at the same time, be made avail able to the public on request, so as to en sure public discussion before the Minister's sanction is given or withheld.

Miss Wilkinson: Section 11 of the Education Act, 1944, requires that publicity shall be given to the development plan after the Minister's approval, but the local education authority are required during its preparation to consult the managers or governors of all schools affected by the plan and this is likely to ensure considerable publicity at that stage.

Ex-Service Personnel(Applications)

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Education whether she is aware that many applicants from the Services to be teachers are being discouraged by the long delay in receiving from her Department any thing but a formal acknowledgment of the receipt of the application; and whether she will take steps to ensure that matters are speeded up.

Miss Wilkinson: The rate at which applications are being dealt with has been greatly improved over the past month or two and is still improving. Steps are being taken to reduce the interval between submission of applications and announcement of the Ministry's decisions. As the hon. Member is aware, the difficulty is chiefly one of manpower.

Mr. Lipson: Can my right hon. Friend say what time she now anticipates will elapse between the receipt of an application and an interview or acceptance of that application?

Miss Wilkinson: It is utterly impossible to reply on a matter of that kind, because these are not standard things

going through a sausage machine; we are dealing with individuals. In some cases,delays are longer than in others. All I can say is that my Department is extremely conscious of the necessity for reducing delays, but, at the same time, we are dealing with an ever-increasing flow of applications which, I was surprised to learn last night, has now reached 1,500 per week.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Does not the right hon. Lady find this increasing flow of applicants very satisfactory indeed?

Miss Wilkinson: I do. I am delighted, but at the same time I must repeat that I am not working a sausage machine; I am dealing with individuals who are being brought into a highly important profession.

Mr. George Thomas: Is it the custom of the right hon. Lady's Department to acknowledge the applications sent in from people in the Services who want to be put on the list?

Miss Wilkinson: I know we ought to do that, but I ask hon. Members to realise that, when dealing with the enormous quantity that we have to deal with, even a formal acknowledgment takes time — it is another step, and practically the least important. I really must ask people to be sensible and to realise that they may not get an acknowledgment of their applications by return of post. We are trying to do our best in a difficult situation, with an immense problem of manpower and accommodation. People must realise that.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Education how many applicants from the services to become teachers, whose applications were made six weeks ago or earlier, had, on 17th December, not yet been summoned to an interview; and how many had not by that date been told if their applications had been successful or not.

Miss Wilkinson: I regret that to obtain this information would impose a great deal of additional labour on interviewing boards and headquarters staff which would not be justifiable in present circumstances.

Mr. Lipson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that as a result of these delays many people in the Services who would


have liked to become teachers have now decided that they will not pursue the matter?

Miss Wilkinson: I know it is undesirable and unfortunate, and I tell the House again that we are doing our best. We cannot do it any quicker. I have gone into this matter with the greatest care with officials who are doing an extremely good job, and I am afraid the House will have to take my word for it that we are doing our best.

Mr. Piratin: Does the right hon. Lady appreciate that a courteous explanation to each individual applicant would assist him in maintaining his present status quo until such time as he is accepted as a teacher?

National Foundation for Educational Research

Mr. Lindsay: asked the Minister of Education whether she is in a position to make a statement on the recently constituted National Foundation for Educational Research; what relationship exists between her Department and the Foundation; and what contribution, direct or in direct, through local education authorities is contemplated.

Miss Wilkinson: The National Foundation for Educational Research, which is now being established, will be an incorporated body, with which the universities, the local education authorities, teachers' associations and the Ministry of Education will all be associated. It is proposed that I should nominate from my Department up to three representatives or assessors to serve on the council of the Foundation. Local education authorities have been invited to subscribe to the funds of the National Foundation an annual sum calculated on the basis of ¼ d. per pupil between two and 18 years of age on the rolls of the authority's schools or colleges providing full or part-time education. The expenditure so incurred will be recognised for the purposes of grant.

Mr. Lindsay: Is the right hon. Lady aware that on this point at any rate there is harmony?

Married Women Teachers, Wales

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Minister of Education the names of the Welsh edu-

cation authorities to whom she has made representations on the question of the employment of married women teachers.

Miss Wilkinson: Representations with regard to the continued employment of married women teachers have been made to the local education authority for Merthyr Tydfil, and to the Glamorgan authority in respect of proposals to dismiss such teachers in the excepted district of Rhondda.

Oral Answers to Questions — RADIO TRANSMISSION(AMATEURS)

Major Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General when he proposes to permit radio amateurs to commence transmission.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr.Burke): Early next month.

Mr. Farthing: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is in a position now to return to the owners the personal aerial transmitters which were deposited with the G.P.O. during the war.

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir; this is being done as quickly as possible with the limited staff available.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Demobilisation

Colonel Erroll: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he will request the release under Class B of the large number of former Post Office employees urgently required to increase the efficiency of his Department.

Mr. Burke: As the hon.and gallant Member is aware, the Ministry of Labour and National Service has already assigned up to 500 releases in Class B to women telegraphists and telephonists. A proposal is under consideration by the Ministry of Labour for the release in Class B ofa considerable number of Post Office men employees in the postal, telegraph, telephone and engineering services.

Colonel Erroll: Can the hon. Gentleman give an approximate indication of the number of persons likely to be affected by these considerations?

Mr. Burke: I cannot give an approximate number. We have asked for a considerable number.

Charges

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will give any indication as to how soon he can contemplate a reduction to prewar rates of postal and telephonic charges.

Sir John Mellor: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General when he proposes to reduce postage, telephone and telegraph rates.

Mr. Burke: I am sorry that I am not in a position to make a statement on these matters at present.

Sir J. Mellor: Does the Minister appreciate that this is a very severe handicap to industry, and will he take urgent steps to obtain some reduction?

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir. The matter is under consideration, but I cannot say anything further at this stage.

Telecommunications Research and Development

Mr. Cobb: asked the Assistant Post master-General what sum of money was paid by the G.P.O. to the telecommunications industry for research and development, respectively, in the 12 months ended June, 1937, and 1945, respectively; and how many engineer and physicist hours were placed at the disposal of the Government thereby.

Mr. Burke: The Post Office does not normally make payments to the telecommunications industry specifically for research and development; the cost of such work forms part of the expenses of the industry and is reflected in the price paid by the Post Office for telecommunications equipment. I have no information about the number of engineer and physicist hour's employed by manufacturersin connection with Post Office contracts.

Mr. Cobb: Is it not a fact that most of the telecommunications apparatus in use by the Post Office is manufactured by contractors and not by the Post Office? Can my hon. Friend say how much of that apparatus so supplied was the result of British research and development?

Mr. Burke: I cannot answer that question without notice.

Hong Kong (Postal Facilities)

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if normal postal arrangements have yet been established with Hong Kong; and how long does it take for a letter to reach Hong Kong from this country.

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir. Letter services were restored to Hong Kong on the 28th of September last by both air and surface route, and all classes of correspondence may now be sent up to the normal limits of weight. It is hoped shortly to restore the parcel post also. Letters are at present taking about 13 days to reach Hong Kong by air and 46 days by surface route.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Is the hon. Gentleman's Department responsible for bringing home the mail of the Forces, as some letters take no less than 25 days to reach this country?

Mr. Burke: We are partly responsible. We work in conjunction with the military authorities.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Does not the Minister agree that his difficult task would be made much easier if civil administration were re-established in Hong Kong?

Telephone System (Accounts)

Mr. Bossom: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General why he does not make public the accounts of the national telephone system; and if he will do so regularly in the New Year.

Mr. Burke: The preparation and presentation of the Post Office Commercial Accounts was suspended during the war as a measure of economy of accounting staff. A good deal of work is involved in their resumption and I do not anticipate that it will be possible to prepare detailed commercial accounts before the year commencing 1st April, 1947.

Mr. Bossom: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this service pays for itself, as it would have to do if it were in private hands?

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir, very much so.

Lieut-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that no private firm is excused from making proper returns and keeping accounts on the


ground of staff shortage, and are nationalised services to be given a special dispensation in this respect?

Mr. Burke: No private firm is of the magnitude of the Post Office, or has undertaken so much work during the war.

Mr. William Williams: Will my hon. Friend emphasize to hon. Members opposite that the telephone service has never looked back since it was taken over by the nation?

Mr. Bossom: Could the Minister state if this House has not, in recent years, had to provide funds to help this service?

Mr. Burke: I think not.

Cable Rates

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General why the G.P.O. has never permitted Cable and Wireless, Limited, to reduce rates for cables to the same level as those charged by the G.P.O. for telegrams to France and Switzerland; and why permission was withheld until 1939 for similar reductions by the company on cables to Austria, Bulgaria, U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia.

Mr. Burke: Cable and Wireless, Ltd., has always been allowed to handle traffic with all these countries at the same rates as those charged on messages passing over the Post Office routes, provided the Company's direct wireless routes were utilised.

Sir J. Mellor: Surely the Minister will not deny that the Post Office refused to allow the company to reduce its charges. Will he state the reason for that?

Mr. Burke: The Post Office has not given a refusal to the Cable and Wireless Company in regard to direct routes, but the, Post Office does not want the company to use an indirect route, which is for long-distance Empire services, for direct communications when both the company and Post Office have direct routes.

Automatic Telephones

Lieut-Colonel: Sir Ian Fraser asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will arrange for an experiment in one automatic exchange area whereby a red light shows on the telephone instrument of each subscriber to indicate to him that a second caller is on the line waiting for him.

Mr. Burke: The suggested experiment would involve extensive engineering research and the complete redesign of major portions of the apparatus both at the exchange and at the subscribers' premises. It would not be possible to undertake this work at the present time.

Sir I. Fraser: Would it not save an enormous amount of the time of everybody concerned and, therefore, be an efficiency?

Mr. Burke: The arrangement is complicated and I imagine would have very great fault liability.

Priority Trunk Calls (Discontinuance)

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General what categories of Government official and what classes of private subscriber are registered as entitled to priority trunk calls; and whether he will extend this concession to Members of Parliament telephoning to their constituents from their offices and private residences.

Mr. Burke: Government officials and private persons and firms registered as entitled to priority for trunk calls consist of individuals sponsored by a Government Department as engaged in duties which need such priority in the national interest. The use of the priority service has now much declined and less than 1 per cent. of trunk calls are booked as priority; most of these would be connected without delay in any case. The Postmaster-General therefore proposes to abolish the priority lists as from 1st January, 1946, retaining machinery for giving priority when necessary in exceptional circumstances to calls concerning public emergencies. In the circumstances the second part of the Question will not arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Redundant Staffs

Flying-Officer Bowden: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will agree to absorb any staff of local authorities' public assistance departments that may be made redundant as a result of the passing of the proposed social insurance scheme.

Squadron-Leader Emrys Roberts: asked the Minister of National Insurance


to what extent relieving officers will be affected by the proposed National Insurance Bill; and whether he will ensure that relieving officers who may be displaced or made redundant by its proposals will be employed by hisDepartment in the administration of national insurance.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I cannot add to the reply given to the hon. Member for South Sal-ford (Mr. Hardy) by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, on 15th November, last.

Mr. Percy Morris: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the proposed National Insurance Bill will contain provisions for the compensation of any displaced staff? If not, why not?

Mr. Griffiths: I cannot anticipate the provisions of the Bill, but early this week I received a deputation from the trades unions representing the staffs affected by this particular question and I informed them that I would see them later on, when the import of our new scheme will be more clearly seen.
Squadron-Leader Roberts: Will the Minister inform the House that he will receive a deputation on behalf of the relieving officers?

Mr. Griffiths: The deputation concerned was on their behalf.

Contributions (Refund)

Major Bruce: asked the Minister of National Insurance when the Emergency Regulation of 1939, prohibiting the payment of claims for the refund of unemployment insurance contributions paid in error, is to be withdrawn.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply I gave, on 22nd November, to the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor).

Proposed Legislation

Mr. James Hudson: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will publish before Christmas, or, at latest, a week before the resumption of Parliament in 1946, the terms of his promised measure of social insurance and, in particular, the proposals affecting the old-age pensioners.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As will be seen by the Order Paper I have given notice of the

presentation of the National Insurance Bill today. I have done this in the hope that the text of the Bill may be available to the House before it resumes on 22nd January, but I think it right to tell the House that, owing to the inevitable complexities of the task, it may not be possible to have the Bill printed until shortly after the House resumes its sitting. However, I have no reason to anticipate that this will in any way prejudice the Government's firm intention to get the Bill on the Statute Book before the Summer Recess and to have the new and improved arrangements operating for existing classes of old age pensioners in the autumn.

Mr. R. A. Butler: In view of the reply given to me by the Leader of the House on the subject of the date of the introduction of the Bill, am I to understand that the delay is inevitable owing to drafting reasons; and may I also take it that, if the Bill does not come out until after we resume, we shall be given plenty of time to examine it, in view of its complexity and importance?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir, the delay is inevitable because of the complexities to which I referred. I think I am entitled to tell the House that everybody concerned with the Bill is working very hard to get it ready as quickly as possible, and yesterday the staffs in my Department and the Department of Parliamentary Counsel, in order to complete the final stages, volunteered to work during Christmas week in order to speed it up. In view of the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, we appreciate that the House will want time to consider this very important Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHANNEL ISLANDS (WAR DAMAGE)

Mr. Marlowe: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether residents in the Channel Islands are covered by War Damage Insurance: and whether, in view of the fact that their rehabilitation and reconstruction must await the findings of the Reparations Commission, His Majesty's Government is making any financial advances to individuals whose homes have been destroyed so that they can rebuild without delay.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): No, Sir. A scheme for the repair and restoration of property lost or damaged during the occupation, has been announced in the Islands, machinery for the investigation of the alleged loss or damage is now being set up and I hope that repair work will begin soon. Advances and payments to individuals will be a matter for the States of Jersey and Guernsey.

Mr. Marlowe: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the State will be able to provide financial assistance, and if individuals are in distress, will he cause advances to be made by this country?

Mr. Ede: I have had some conversation with the Islands on this matter and I do not anticipate that the difficulties which the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests are likely to arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS (RATE CONTRIBUTIONS)

Mr. Touche: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he is aware that ratepayers in Surrey, living within the Metropolitan police area, are, under existing legislation, liable to contribute to the Metropolitan Police Fund deficiency in respect of costs incurred by Metropolitan police courts and for the salaries of probation officers engaged in Metropolitan police courts, although the Metropolitan police court district is confined to the county of London; and if he will take steps to end this anomaly in the Police Bill or by other amending legislation.

Mr. Ede: I appreciate that the position to which the hon. Member refers is anomalous, and the point has been noted for consideration of the question of legislation when a suitable opportunity occurs. I do not think, however, that the Police Bill which does not deal with Metropolitan magistrates' courts affords a suitable opportunity.

Mr. Touche: Does the Minister appreciate that the Police Bill extends this anomaly by extending the Metropolitan Police area?

Mr. Ede: It extends it in some areas, and contracts it in others.

Oral Answers to Questions — WILD BIRDS PROTECTION ACT

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of EARL WINTERTON:-

37. To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that frequent breaches occur in the Wild Birds Protection Act in rural districts; and if he will circularise chief constables in rural districts asking that action be taken against anyone found committing such an offence.

Earl Winterton: In view of the large number of Questions on the Paper, I would like Question No. 37 to be treated as a non-oral Question, and I would like, therefore, to ask Question No. 38.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLOURED BRITISH SUBJECTS (HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS)

Earl Winterton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instruct the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police to oppose annual licence courts in the Metropolitan Police district from granting a licence to any hotel, restaurant or public house which refuses to serve Indian or African subjects of the Crown on the ground of their colour.

Mr. Ede: While I fully sympathise with the object which the Noble Lord has in mind, I do not think, on present information, that it would be appropriate for me to issue any general instructions of the kind which he proposes. But I am glad to have the opportunity of emphasising my strong condemnation of such conduct on the part of any licenced premises, and I am sure that it would be equally condemned by responsible public opinion throughout the country.

Mr. House: Is there not something more practical which the right hon. Gentleman can do to prevent such a deplorable practice?

Earl Winterton: In view of the fact that there are well-authenticated instances of prominent Indians who were once friendly to this country being made hostile to this country by this treatment, will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this matter, especially in view of the fact that, if I am successful in catching the eye of the


Chairman, I shall most certainly raise it on the Estimates, with, I think, very great support from Members in all parts of the House?

Mr. Ede: I do not think that the Noble Lord quite heard the exact wording of the answer.

Earl Winterton: Yes, I did.

Mr. Ede: I refrain from giving general instructions, but I am certainly going to take particular cases into my very careful consideration, with a view to deciding whether, in those particular instances, something ought not to be done.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Mr. Austin: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is prepared to publish a Report on the incidence and cause of juvenile delinquency in the war years, in view of the importance of this matter to the national well being.

Mr. Ede: The question of resuming the publication of statistics relating to crime which had to be suspended during the war is now being considered, and the importance of compiling and publishing as full information as possible about juvenile offenders will be borne well in mind.

Mr. Austin: Can my right hon. Friend give some indication of when it is proposed to resume publication of these reports?

Mr. Ede: If my hon. Friend will put down a Question about that after the Recess, I hope to be able to give him a more exact answer.

Mr. Lindsay: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a mistake to exaggerate the so-called juvenile delinquency, which, in spite of the blackout, has been very much less than previously?

Mr. Ede: I hesitate to give an expression of opinion on a general issue like that, but juvenile delinquency is very serious indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARISH COUNCIL ELECTIONS

Mr. Gooch: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to abolish voting by

show of hands at parish council elections, and substitute a secret ballot, as in the case of all other local government elections.

Mr. Ede: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on 8th November, to a similar Question by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom).

Oral Answers to Questions — HIS MAJESTY'S PRISONS

Disturbances (Inquiries)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will ensure that future inquiries into disturbances in any of His Majesty's prisons shall be conducted in public.

Mr. Ede: Any offence against prison discipline which is too serious to be dealt with within the limited powers of the Governor of the Prison, is the subject of investigation and adjudication by the Prison Visiting Committee, which is an independent body composed of, or including, magistrates. I do not think there would be any advantage, and there would be many disadvantages in having inquiries of this kind conducted in public.

Flogging (Cardiff Gaol)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now state the age of each of the persons sentenced to flogging after the recent disturbance in the Cardiff gaol; and the punishment meted out to the persons concerned.

Mr. Ede: Four youths, of whom one was-aged 20, two 19 and one 18, received twelve strokes of the birch-rod. Two youths, of whom one was aged 17½ and the other just under 17, received nine strokes.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Disbanded Troops

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancasterhow many German troops disbanded in the British zone have been refused admission to their former home areas now in the Russian and French zones.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): I am making inquiries and will write to the hon. and gallant Member.

Displaced Persons(Treatment)

Miss Rathbone: (by Private Notice)asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he can now make a statement concerning the treatment of Jewish displaced persons in the British Zone in Germany.

Mr. J. Hynd: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the criticisms to which the hon. Member refers. They are without foundation. The information is necessarily rather long, and I hope that the House will bear with me while I give it.
On the collapse of Germany in May, 1945, the military authorities were faced with a stupendous task in dealing with the many millions of displaced persons who were then at large in ex-enemy territories. By the end of October, the vast majority of those who could be repatriated had either been returned to their countries of origin, or were on their way, leaving in the British zone in Germany approximately 5.50,000 who were not immediately repatriable. Of this number only a relatively small proportion were Jews. Jewish persons receive the same treatment and facilities as other displaced persons.
Displaced persons have an absolute priority over the German population in regard to food, and special efforts are made to provide a balanced diet. A minimum ration scale of 2,000 calories per day is prescribed, with additions for workers and other special categories. This is much in excess of what is being received by the Germans. Frequent levies of clothing for the benefit of displaced persons have been made on the German population to augment such imported clothing as has been available. The biggest levy has just been completed and as a result Winter clothing is now being issued to displaced persons. Every effort is made to provide adequate protection against the cold. Deficiencies still exist, particularly in blankets and men's overcoats, but steps are being taken to make good the shortages.
Displaced persons are accommodated in areas known as assembly centres which often consist of block of houses requisitioned from the German people. Other assembly centres consist of large well-fitted barracks or camps. Inevitably, given the general shortage of accommodation in the heavily bombed German cities,

some assembly centres are overcrowded but the standard of living space laid down as the minimum for displaced persons is higher than that allowed for the German population. The movement of displaced persons to specially selected winter accommodation started in October last and is now practically complete.
Prominence has been given to conditions which exist in what has been called "the notorious Belsen Camp." This camp was in fact destroyed by order shortly after the British troops arrived. The only assembly centre near the site is that: at Hoehne where a large number of displaced persons, among them 9,500 Jews, are accommodated. Hoehne assembly centre consists of large brick barracks formerly occupied by S.S. troops who, under the Hitler regime, received special treatment and accommodation. Many displaced persons who have been transferred from Hoehne to other assembly centres, have asked to return.
The centre is run by the British Red Cross Society under the direction of a relief detachment of the military authorities. The Jewish displaced persons maintain their own guards, workshops, recreation rooms, and sick-bay, and organise their own working parties and administration. The hospital is administered by U.N.R.R.A. There is an adequate supply of medicine and the hospital is well fitted and well run. Included in the staff are some German doctors and nurses who work under the direction of U.N.R.R.A. doctors. Each displaced person has at least two blankets, as have all displaced persons in assembly centres, and all have received a fresh outfit of clothing since leaving the Belsen concentration camp.
There is no censorship of newspapers within the centre and complete freedom of movement in and out of the camp is permitted. No restriction is placed on Zionist activities. Contrary to statements which have been circulating in the Press overseas there was no disturbance at this centre on 15th November. Nor has there been a disturbance at any other time. The facts are that recently a procession of Jewish displaced persons from the centre marched to the office of the military government detachment to present a resolution to be passed to the British authorities. The commanding officer of the detachment accepted the resolution for


onward transmission. There were no incidents and no arrests and the acting president of the Jewish committee at the centre reports that he has had no complaints about the procedure.

The following food scale is in force:

2913 calories per day for nursing and expectant mothers.

2849 calories per day for workers.

2161 calories per day for non-workers and children.

Ex-enemy nationals, including many Jews, who have been persecuted because of their race, religion or activities in favour of the United Nations, provided that their loyalty to the Allies has been established, are treated similarly to United Nations displaced persons. Those who were at one time at assembly centres and have left voluntarily have been given ration books, enabling them to draw the higher scale of rations appropriate to medium heavy workers. The large number who are scattered as individuals throughout the British zone and live voluntarily as part of the indigenous population, cannot readily be traced, and the administrative difficulties are such that it is not yet possible to provide them with the material benefits that are available at the centres. The local British authorities have this matter under consideration and are endeavouring to overcome the difficulties.

Miss Rathbone: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for his in many ways reassuring report, though there are still admitted deficiencies, may I ask him whether he will consider whether it would not help to forestall criticisms, whether justified or unjustified, if he would follow the example of the President of the United States by appointing a Jewish adviser to the Military Government in our Zone similar to the appointment of Judge Rifkind who has been appointed Jewish adviser in the American Zone?

Mr. Hynd: I am afraid it would be impossible to take any measures which would forestall criticisms which are unjustified, and which are in this case deliberately fabricated. Iam already considering the appointment of Jewish advisers. So far as the second part of the hon. Lady's supplementary question is concerned, in regard to Jewish welfare workers in the camps, there are already

Jewish welfare workers on the staff of U.N.R.R.A. who are now taking over control of these camps I have had no complaint of a shortage of Jewish personnel with U.N.R.R.A. If there are such complaints I shall be glad to consider them.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: Is the hon. Member aware that I and probably other Members of this Househave visited Belsen, or as it now is, Hoehne Camp, and the work done by the people in control is very praiseworthy indeed; and however much sympathy one has with the displaced persons, a great deal of credit should go to the people who have organised those camps?

Mr. Lipson: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he is satisfied that an adequate amount of work and other activities are provided for these displaced persons, and that the arrangements in the British Zone in this connection are at least as good as in the American Zone?

Mr. Hynd: I cannot speak for the American Zone, but I can assure the House that the difficulty is not so much the inadequacy of available work but the reluctance of many displaced persons to take advantage of those facilities, largely due to psychological factors. They feel it is time that they were given a rest; they were slave workers and they feel that the Germans should now work for them. Facilities are provided in most camps and are taken advantage of. Special rations and other amenities are offered to encourage participation in those facilities.

Mr. Lindsay: May I ask the Minister how these completely inaccurate reports are put about? I have received reports about the work of the British Red Cross.

Mr. Hynd: I obviously cannot say how these inspired Press statements in other countries originated. The fact is that they have been published and, therefore, I am glad to have this opportunity of repudiating them.

Mr. Janner: While I thank the Minister for the statement he has made, is he prepared to consider, in view of the very peculiar position of Jewish displaced persons, the possibility of having separate camps for them, so that, in addition to receiving the ordinary amenities, they may have congenial and appropriate surroundings in which to recover?

Mr. Hynd: I am afraid the implication would be very detrimental.

Miss Rathbone: Is the Minister aware that as far as I have been able to make out—and I have been making inquiries since I first heard of these violent criticisms—the particularly unfair criticisms which he has answered to-day do not seem to have originated in any of the well-known Jewish bodies in this country? They did not even know that the criticisms had been made.

Mr. Hynd: I am glad to saythat, so far as I am aware, such stories have not appeared in the British Press.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Staggered Holidays (Co-ordination)

Wing-Commander Roland Robinson: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is now in a position to announce what action he will take to secure the staggering of holidays as recommended by the Catering Wages Commission.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I am proposing to appoint a standing committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary representative of the different interests concerned to stimulate and co-ordinate action in the matter in England and Wales. In conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland I propose to appoint a similar committee for Scotland under the chairmanship of one of the Joint Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland. The services of the staff of my Department will be available to take the necessary day-to-day action with the appropriate authorities in accordance with the plans of the standing committees and, by arrangement with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, my regional controllers will have the advice and assistance of the regional boards for industry in this connection.

Wing-Commander Robinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when the Committees will begin work?

Mr. Isaacs: As soon as we can get them constituted, and we are dealing with it at once.

Disabled Persons (Registration)

Mr. Haydn Davies: asked the Minister of Labour how many persons have applied for registration under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act since 25th September of this year; and what percentage of the estimated total of disabled persons does this represent.

Mr. Isaacs: Up to 30th November the latest date for which figures are available, just over 148,000 persons had applied for registration under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act. In reply to the last part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) on 4th December.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: asked the Minister of Labour if blind persons are included in the Disabled Persons Register; and what is the earliest age at which registration is permitted.

Mr. Isaacs: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The statutory school-leaving age is the earliest age at which registration is permitted.

Catering Wages Commission (Report)

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will now publish the final Report from the Catering Wages Commission concerning the rehabilitation of the catering industry.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. Farthing) on 18th December, a copy of which I am sending him.

Sir J. Mellor: Is not the Minister aware that he has had a long time to think about this? Why cannot he now say that the report will be published and when it will be published?

Mr. Isaacs: The answer I gave last week said that the report is being published.

Unemployment Statistics

Mr. Scott-Elliot: asked the Minister of Labour whether a count of unemployed insured persons was taken in November; and whether he will make the figures available.

Mr. Isaacs: A count of insured persons registered as unemployed was taken on


12th November, and the figures were published on 12th December. They will also be given in the December issue of the "Ministry of Labour Gazette."

Labour Control

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Minister of Labour what labour controls now apply to men under 30 years of age demobilised in Class A.

Mr. Isaacs: During their period of paid leave men of any age demobilised in Class A are free from all controls. At the end of that period they are subject to the same controls as apply to other civilian workers except that in no circumstances would they be withdrawn from any employment which they found during their period of freedom. The controls applying generally to men under 30 are as follows. If they are employed in an undertaking scheduled under an Essential Work Order they cannot leave or be discharged except with the permission of a National Service Officer. They must take a new job through a local office of the Ministry of Labour. Men in these age classes are still liable to direction to an individual job, but these powers are only used in the last resort for a limited range of work of high priority and in any case no Class A ex-Service man would ever be directed away from home.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATION

Statistics

Mr. R. A. Butler: (by Private Notice)asked the Minister of Labour whether he will give the House the latest figures of

Releases and Discharges from the Forces and Auxiliary and Nursing Services.


1. — Cumulative figures 18thJune, 1945 to 30th November, 1945.


Service.
MEN.
WOMEN.


Programme.
Releases and Discharges.
Excess (+) or Deficit (-) on Programme.
Programme
Releases and Discharges.
Excess ( + ) or Deficit (-) on Programme.


Royal Navy*
…
147,000
125,655
21,345
16,330
20,729
+4,399


Army
…
…
594,000
590,968
3,032
68,500
71,756
+3,250


Royal Air Force
…
214,700
238,692
+23,992
51,990
54,744
+2,754


Total
…
955,700
955,315
-385
136,820
147.229
+10,409


 *The figures for the Royal Navy understate the total number of releases and discharges actually to 30th November. This is because releases are made from ships and establishments dispersal centres and in some cases there is a considerable time lag between the date the date on which the report of the release reaches the Admiralty.

the total numbers of those demobilised from the various Services up to date.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir.I will, with permission, circulate a full statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The releases for November amounted to 391,086. This is an increase of nearly 111,000 over the October figure. Towards the end of the month releases were proceeding at the rate of 108,000 a week. The total releases from 18th June to the end of November were 1,102,000.

Mr. Butler: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any indication, prior to our reading the long statement, of the rate of the Class B releases, whether they have been very much accelerated?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. They have been very much accelerated. The last time I examined the figures they were then running quite on the line of the figure of 10 per cent. allotted to them.

Mr. Stephen: Will the Minister agree that the book he issued in connection with demobilisation might be brought up to date each month?

Mr. Isaacs: I will consider that.

Mr. Molson: Is it the policy of the Government still to retain Class B releases at 10 per cent.? The Prime Minister in his speech referred to 15 per cent. What exactly is the position?

Mr. Isaacs: A final decision has not yet been reached, but we are moving towards increasing the Class B releases to 15 per cent., because byso doing, with the acceleration of the releases in Class A, no hardship is being caused to anybody.

Following is the statement:

2.— Analysis of Releases and Discharges18th June, 1945, to 2,0th November, 1945.


Service.
Class A.
Class B.
Other Releases and Discharges.
Total.


&amp;nbsp;
MEN.


Royal Navy
…
…
105,049
2,800
17,806
125,655


Army
…
…
…
452,830
47,135 
91,003
590,968


Royal Air Force
…
198,789
17,225
22,678
238,692


Total 
…
756,668
67,160
131,487
955,315


&amp;nbsp;
WOMEN.


Royal Navy
…
…
17,695
20 
3,014
20,729


Army
…
…
…
60,423
620
10,713
71,756


Royal Air Force
…
45,792
297
8,655
54,744


Total
…
123,910
937
22,382
147,229


&amp;nbsp;
TOTAL, MEN AND WOMEN.


Royal Navy
…
…
122,744
2,820
20,820
146,384


Army 
…
…
…
513,253 
47,755
101,716
662,724


Royal Air Force
…
244.581
17,522
31,333
293,436


Total
…
880,578
68,097*
153,869
1,102,544


*Individual specialist releases included in the total number 2,706 men and 43 women.

3. — Releases and Discharges during November, 1945.


Service.
Class A.
Class B.
Other Releases and Discharges.
Total.


&amp;nbsp;
MEN.


Royal Navy
…
…
39,733
768
3,418
43,919


Army
…
…
…
175,355
20,542
22,165
218,062


Royal Air Force
…
92,259
7,284
4,037
103,580


Total
…
…
307,347
28,594
29,620
365,561


&amp;nbsp;
WOMEN.


Royal Navy
…
…
4,127
13
417
4,557


Army
…
…
…
7,912
483
1,629
10,024


Royal Air Force
…
9,699
215
1,030
10,944


Total
…
…
21,738
711
3,076
25,525


&amp;nbsp;
TOTAL, MEN AND WOMEN


Royal Navy
…
…
43,860
781
3,835
48,476


Army
…
…
…
183,267
21,025
23,794
228,086


Royal Air Force 
…
101,958
7,499
5,067 
114,524


Total
…
…
329,085
29,305
32,696
391,086

Dustmen

Mr. John Lewis: asked the Minister of Labour if he will arrange for the demobilisation of dustmen under Class B, in order to remove the anxiety felt by housewives in some areas, owing to the fact that local authorities are short of this class of labour.

Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir. Although there is some difficulty in a few areas in meeting demands for this class of labour, I am not satisfied that the present situation justi-

fies the release of men from the Forces under Class B for this purpose.

Mr. Lewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that putrifying organic matter, apart from causing an unpleasant odour, is also dangerous to health, and, in these circumstances, and in view of the fact that housewives are suffering great inconvenience in this matter, will he not consider it once again?

Mr. Isaacs: If I considered it again, I should not change the decision, especially


in view of the fact of the increase operating under Class A.

Mr. Lewis: In view of the highly unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICE (TEMPORARY CLERKS)

Mr. Chamberlain: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Civil Service temporary clerks, aged 30 to 40 years, with two years or more of continuous service and appropriate educational qualifications, who have not been nominated for establishment, will be allowed to enter for the open reconstruction examination.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): No, Sir.

Mr. Chamberlain: Does not the hon. Gentleman think it very inequitable that a man aged 38, who has had five years' service, has matriculated, but has not had the good fortune to be nominated, should not be allowed to take his chance in open competitive examination?

Mr. Hall: This matter has been debated in this House, and this was included in the arrangement come to between the Staff Side of the Whitley Council and the trade unions and the Civil Service Commission. That being so, and as the number of vacancies open to these people is above what it was before the war, it is felt that we cannot reopen it at this stage.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-AMERICAN RECIPROCAL AID

Colonel Ponsonby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to paragraph 6 of the Joint Statement on page 7, Cmd. 6708, he will state the nature of the educational programmes for which, as well as for other objects, land can be acquired and buildings constructed in the United Kingdom and the Colonial dependencies, in utilisation of pounds sterling to an aggregate dollar value not exceeding $50,000,000.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Educational programmes cover schemes for the interchange of teachers and students, the establishment of scholarships, the arranging of

exhibitions and the like, which might be agreed between the two Governments. The reference to land and buildings is to purchases for the direct use of the Government of the United States— for example, the provision of a new Embassy in London. These arrangements are to be further discussed with the United States Government.

Colonel Ponsonby: May I ask the Minister whether it will include, for instance, the erection of an educational film studio?

Mr. Hall: I am sorry I could not answer that point without notice, but I will look into the matter and write to the hon. and gallant Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYEES (PAID HOLIDAY)

Lieutenant Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether industrial employees in Government establishments will receive a paid holiday on Christmas Eve.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes, Sir. Arrangements have been made for a special additional paid holiday to be granted this year to all Government industrial employees on 24th December or New Year's Eve, in the case of staffs employed in Scotland.

Lieutenant Skeffington-Lodge: In expressing grateful thanks to the hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that the answer he has given will give the greatest satisfaction to many thousand industrial employees throughout the country, who will regard it as a very pleasant Christmas Box?

Oral Answers to Questions — IRISH CITIZENS (IMPRISONMENT, ENGLAND)

Mr. Longden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will reconsider the circumstances through which 60 Irish men and women were given long-term prison sentences for political offences, with a view to granting a general amnesty.

Mr. P. Freeman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will review the sentences of the


60 Irish men and girls now in English prisons, where they are serving long-term sentences for political offences.

Mr. J. Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now consider granting an amnesty for the 60 Irish men and women who are serving long-term sentences in English prisons, the majority of whom have already spent nearly seven years in penal servitude.

Major Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now consider releasing the 60 Irish men and women still serving sentences in this country for offences in connection with the bomb incidents in 1939.

Mr. Ede: I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Leeds (Mr. G. Porter) on 28th November.

Mr. Longden: Could the Minister not make some fresh gesture to the Irish people in this direction?

Mr. Ede: Ihope that my hon. Friend will read the answer to which I have referred, where he will find the reasons for my decision fully set out.

Oral Answers to Questions — METROPOLITAN POLICE (TRAINING)

Captain Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he willorganise specialised training for the London police in up-to-date methods of unarmed combat and special counter measures, to. outwit the modern criminal and so assist the police in dealing with robberies such as have been recently carried out.

Mr. Ede: Any assumption that the police are untrained for their work or that their training is out of date would be mistaken. Constant attention is given to the subject of training.

Captain Blackburn: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the standard of training of the police here is on the same level as that of the American police and F.B.I.?

Mr. Ede: In view of the different problems which they have to face, I do not

think our police force need fear comparison with any other force.

Mr. J. Lewis: Would the Minister say whether there is any collaboration or exchange of information between the New York police and the London police?

Mr. Ede: Yes, we get a great deal of information. We are always willing to learn, and to teach.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS (STATELESS PERSONS)

Miss Rathbone: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will define his policy regarding the forcible repatriation or deportation of persons claiming to be Stateless; does he send back to their countries of origin persons whose Statelessness isestablished or probable or doubtful; and, in cases where the country of origin has a National Government, does he first obtain the consent of that Government.

Mr. Ede: When I am satisfied that: it is conducive to the public good to terminate a foreigner'sstay in this country, and that no disproportionate personal hardship will be caused, it is my duty to take appropriate action. In practice, an alien can only be deported to territory whose Government recognise him as a national or are otherwise prepared to admit him. The same principles apply to the compulsory repatriation of aliens of enemy origin.

Miss Rathbone: Does my right hon. Friend mean that he will no longer deport the man, particulars of whose case have been furnished to him, who was born in a part of Poland which is no longer Poland, left at the age of four, does not speak any Polish, and, being a Jew, will be severely penalised if he goes back to a country to which he does not belong, and has he to ask the leave of the Warsaw Government to do that?

Mr. Ede: I am in correspondence with the hon. Lady about this case, and I am seeing whether there is some place other than Poland which will be willing to receive this man.

Miss Rathbone: How can there possibly be a country willing to receive a petty criminal and a man who is definitely


Stateless according to international legal and customary definitions of Stateless-ness?

Mr. Ede: I very much regret that the hon. Lady should have made a certain disclosure in the course of that further question, because it will increase the difficulties I have in dealing appropriately with this man.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISTRESSED PERSONS, EUROPE

Flight-Lieutenant Haire: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is now in a position to make a further statement with regard to the immigration into this country of distressed persons in Europe; and if he will make it clear how application should be made for permits to enter.

Mr. Ede: I must wait until I hear that the proposals agreed upon with the various Departments concerned in this country, are capable of implementation in Germany and in Austria. Any further announcement will of course include particulars of the authority to whom applications should be made for visas for the journey to this country.

Flight-Lieutenant Haire: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a great deal of uncertainty exists, partly due to this lack of information from his Department, because people who make application in this country are told that their relatives should apply to Consulates of the Foreign Office, and when they apply there, they are told that they should apply to the Home Office in this country; when will a statement be made?

Mr. Ede: This matter is very difficult owing to the still disturbed state of parts of the Continent. I am doing all I can to arrange that what has been decided in this country shall be implemented abroad.

Lieutenant Skeffington-Lodge: Is my right hon. Friend aware that extremely unsympathetic treatment is being meted out to applicants in Rome?

Mr. McAdam: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider reviewing the conditions under which displaced persons in Europe can enter this country, so as to include

persons now living in the British zone, who have lost all their relations in Europe but who have relatives in this country who are prepared to give them a home without causing expanse to His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Ede: As I said when I announced this scheme on the 13th November, this is a first step and, if it is possible to extend the scheme, it will be extended. It is, however, too soon to form any estimate of the numbers involved and of the consequent strain on the limited resources available in this country if any addition were made to the categories which I have already announced.

Mr. McAdam: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how he would justify difference of treatment between, say, a girl of 16 years of age who has lost her parents and who has been brought to this country, and whose only living relative is a brother in this country; and a woman over 60 years of age who has lost her family —her husband, three sisters and a daughter—in a German concentration camp, and who has two living relatives in this country, who are naturalised British subjects?

Mr. Ede: I cannot attempt to justify any of these things on any grounds of logic. What I am trying to do is to make the maximum amount of relief available for those people who are most likely to be able to benefit from it. In reaching a decision, in view of the tremendous numbers involved, I have to make distinctions which appear to be very anomalous.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY PENSIONERS

Sir Patrick Hannon: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take into consideration the sufferings of former members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and widows of constables who were killed, or who have died as the result of exceptional strain, during the disturbed period which preceded the establishment of the Irish Free State; and what steps will he take to provide a remedy.

Mr. Ede: Parliament made special provision at the time of the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary for former


members of the force and for their widows in the Constabulary (Ireland) Act, 1922, and the circumstances towhich the Question refers were then taken into account.

Sir P. Hannon: Does not the Home Secretary realise the amount of misery that still exists in Ireland in relation to these people, who were not adequately compensated at that time, and the great hardship caused to their dependants?

Mr. Ede: I regret that it is quite impossible now to reopen this issue, which was settled in 1922.

Oral Answers to Questions — FASCIST ACTIVITIES

Mr. Benn Levy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will define the conditions under which Sir Oswald Mosley was released; and whether these conditions were infringed by his meeting held at the Royal Hotel on 15th December, or by the holding of public meetings to advocate the doctrines of Fascism.

Mr. Ede: The conditions under which Sir Oswald Mosley was released from detention were imposed under Defence Regulation 18b and ceased to have effect when this Defence Regulation was revoked on 9th May, 1945.

Mr. Levy: May I ask my right hon. Friend, seeing that these doctrines are aimed at the whole basis of British freedom, and have already rotted away more than one democracy abroad, whether he will consider establishing a small legal commission to devise ways and means of protecting our country against similar possibilities on the basis that it is nonsensical for us in the name of freedom to allow men freedom to destroy freedom?

Mr. Ede: The points raised by my hon. Friend are at the present time engaging my most active consideration, and I shall be answering further Questions in the course of the morning in which I think I shall be able to elaborate a little more the points that he has raised.

Lieut-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Does not the Home Secretary think that Sir Oswald Mosley, who was utterly discredited, would be far better left in well-earned obscurity than receive free advertisement by Questions in this House?

Mr. Ede: I cannot limit the activities of hon. Members of this House, but I am quite certain of this, that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Mr. Platts-Mills: While my right hon. Friend is being vigilant, will he take steps to see that Finsbury's most prized memorial is protected from the vandalism to which it is now exposed?

Mr. Ede: I do the best I can to ensure that that shall happen, and I am hopeful that it will be possible to find some of 'lie people who were engaged in that particular act.

Captain Blackburn: Is my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker: There are more Questions on this subject, and we had better, get on with them.

Mr. Popplewell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the Christmas gathering held at the Royal Hotel, Woburn Place, W.C., on 15th December, by 18B detainees and others; if he took the names of all those attending, and if he will publish them; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent these people annoying the public to such a degree that breaches of the peace take place.

Mr. J. Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that at a recent meeting of ex-18B detainees a reporter was manhandled by Fascists and if, at all places where these persons congregate, he will take steps where possible to ensure that police are present in order to prevent a repetition of that form of political hooliganism which existed prior to the war and which was responsible for innocent onlookers being beaten up and injured.

Mr. Ede: I understand from the Press reports that this was a private gathering for invited guests. It is no part of the duties of the police to attend private functions for the purpose of maintaining order, or to require persons attending to give their names, but the police would of course intervene to restore order if a breach of the peace occurred. The police have received no complaints from the reporter of having been manhandled, but it is open to any person to institute proceedings if more force than is reasonable and necessary is used to eject him from the premises.

Mr. Popplewell: May I take it that at any future meeting or demonstration which might be arranged by these arrogant people, and so create a breach of the peace, the public will be protected and action taken against the demonstrators?

Mr. Ede: It will all depend whether I or my Department have information as to when and where such, a private gathering will take place. We do not anticipate that we shall receive invitations. If a breach of the peace occurs, we shall do what we can to protect the public, and we shall take action, if we are informed of the time and place of the meeting, to prevent breachesof the peace occurring.

Mr. J. Lewis: Does not my right hon. Friend think it is possible, in the public interest, to introduce a regulation whereby all political meetings should be notified to the police beforehand— [Hon. Members: "Gestapo "] — so that in the event of the Fascists deciding to hold a meeting and of this male Pompadour strutting all over the country, in his uniform, we can take steps to stop it?

Mr. Ede: It would be very difficult, I think, for a start, to draft a regulation, especially in the short time left to me now to draft regulations, defining what a political meeting was. These people are not allowed to appear in uniform; this House has already taken steps against that.

Mr. Eden: Will not the right hon. Gentleman make it plain that the suggestion of his hon. Friend behind him is not only difficult to handle in the definition but most undesirable in every respect?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir, I agree. I should not like to have to be informed every time the successor of the 1922 Committee is meeting.

Mrs. Leah Manning: In case I have misunderstood him, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether what he meant by his reply was, that so long as these are private gatherings, Sir Oswald Mosley and the Fascists will have the right to corrupt with their debased ideas the mind of any young person whom they invite to their private parties? If that is so, will those of us who oppose him again be described as "premature anti-fascists "?

Mr. Ede: I have not described anybody in those terms, and I cannot prevent

people holding private gatherings in this country. The whole question is one of great difficulty. I am concerned that the liberal government of this country should not be destroyed, as it has been destroyed abroad, by armed and truculent minorities seizing power with which they were never invested by a majority of their countrymen. However, I should find it very difficult indeed to frame at the moment any Act that would enable me to deal with them. I would ask people in this matter to preserve some sense of proportion.

Mr. Molson: Will the Home Secretary give an undertaking that he will resist the attempts of the Socialist majority in this House to establish a Gestapo?

Mr. Ede: I have not heard any suggestion in that direction, but I have already indicated that I do regard the control of truculent, armed minorities in a democracy as being a matter to which the Government must give their consideration.

Mr. Thurtle: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in considering any measures to deal with these people, bear in mind the old-established principle of British freedom of speech?

Mr. Ede: I do have that in mind, but I would point out that even Milton laid it down, in the great address which he made to this House, that where people aim at extirpating free discussion they must be regarded as being ripe for extirpation themselves.

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that a representative of the Press was violently ejected from a gathering of Fascists at the Royal Hotel, London, last Saturday because he was taking notes of a speech in which Sir Oswald Mosley threatened vengeance against his political opponents; that later on the same night the Lenin Memorial in North London was defaced by Fascists; that the headquarters of the League of Christian Reformers have been raided by other citizens taking unofficial action; and if, in view of the recurrence of such breaches of the peace and the risk of a more extensive development of political gang feuds, he will take active steps to check the provocation offered to loyal British subjects by the current revival of Fascist activity.

Mr. Belcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been drawn to the attempted revival of a British Fascist organisation under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley, and if he proposes to take any steps to prevent the breach of peace which would follow if this attempt were allowed to proceed.

Mr. Garry Allighan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the menace to internal security arising from the activities of Fascists, such as Sir Oswald Mosley and Sir A. H. M. Ramsay, around whom treacherous elements are being organised and at whose reunion in London last week, attended by 800 men and women who had been detained during the war in the interests of the State, members of the public were assaulted; and what action the Government intends to take to prevent this recrudescence of Fascism becoming a danger to the State again.

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that British Fascists have announced their intention to resume their activities in this country; that the wide spread feeling among the people of this country is that victory over German Fascism was not intended to permit Fascism to grow on this country; and what steps will be taken to render Fascist and anti-Semitic activities illegal in Britain.

Captain Francis Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his Department is keeping a watch on the activities of former members of the British Union of Fascists and, in particular, on their recent efforts to revive a Fascist movement in this country.

Major Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the widespread concern and indignation that has been provoked, especially among Servicemen, by the revival of Fascist activities and the cult of Hitler in England; and if he will take steps to restrain this negation of the victory of democracy.

Mr. Ede: I am aware of the matters referred to and of the very proper hostility of the people of this country to Fascism. The Government are fully alive to all the risks involved in a revival of

Fascist activity. The law already provides safeguards against seditious activities of all kinds and protects all sections of the community irrespective of race or creed against disorderly or provocative conduct. A close watch is being, and will be, kept on any manifestations of Fascism and the law will be strictly enforced.

Mr. Driberg: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that these enemy agents will exploit every difficulty and do all they can to sabotage the recovery of this country in the next few years, and will he, in the spirit of his admirable quotation from Milton, take steps to deprive them of civil rights?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir; I am not prepared to announce today the steps which it may be necessary to take if this menace should become more pronounced. I hope that I have given to the House an indication that I am carefully watching the matter, and that I have no intention that democracy shall be overthrown in this country by minority movements of this kind.

Mr. Belcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the statement which he has made will give a certain amount of satisfaction in the country; and will he continue to bear in mind the fact that unless these people are prevented from spreading their Fascist doctrines, there is likely to arise a very dangerous state of public opinion in the country?

Mr. Ede: I would appeal to hon. Members to exercise a sense of proportion and not to flatter these people by making them appear to be more menacing than they, in fact, are. We have a very ancient democracy, with a great sense of humour, and I am quite certain that they will put a proper valuation upon many of the claims and statements that are being made.

Mr. Piratin: May I ask the Home Secretary if he will recall that similar tolerance was expressed by Members of the Opposition towards Fascism 12 years ago, when it could have been stemmed more easily than was the case after six years of war; and will the Home Secretary consider the introduction of legislation to make illegal the dissemination of anti-Semitism?

Mr. Ede: I do not think I can carry the matter any further in reply to that supplementary question than I have already


done. I am quite sure of this, that I shall have the support of the House in taking all reasonable steps to deal with any real menace that develops.

Captain Francis Noel-Baker: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the various special departments concerned in investigating these kinds of activities shall not be allowed in future to show the sort of political bias which they sometimes showed during the war?

Mr. Ede: I believe that the Special Branch under my Department acts with complete impartiality in this matter. One of the difficulties of dealing with the matter is that it is very difficult to define Fascism in any terms which do not include other schools of political thought.

Mr. James Hudson: Will the right hon. Gentleman keep in mind, when the Special Branch of his Department are called upon to deal with this matter, that they should not be allowed to suppress opinion, even if it is of an unpopular character, and that they should carry out only the general provisions of the law?

Mr. Ede: I thought that I had dealt with that matter earlier. My hon. Friend can rest assured that the Special Branch

will not exceed the powers which they now have; but it may be necessary, and I do not want to blink this fact, for the Secretary of State to ask to be armed with additional powers.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: The Home Secretary has already said that the cannot go any further with this matter and, therefore, it is no use asking further questions.

Mr. Driberg: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. We shall return to this subject after the Recess, on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — BORSTAL ALLOCATION CENTRE (HAM COMMON)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what purpose Latchmere House, Ham Common, is now being put; and whether it is classified as a civilian or military place of detention.

Mr. Ede: Latchmere House is not at present in use, but it is being taken over by the Prison Commissioners as from 25th December and will be used, as soon as the necessary adaptations have been made, as a Borstal allocation centre.

BILL PRESENTED

National Insurance Bill

" to establish an extended system of national insurance providing pecuniary payments by way of unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, maternity benefit, retirement pension, widows' benefit, guardian's allowance and death grant, to repeal or amend the existing enactments relating to unemployment insurance, national health insurance, widows', orphans' and old age contributory pensions and non-contributory old age pensions, to provide for the making of payments towards the cost of a national health service, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. James Griffiths; supported by Mr. Greenwood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Westwood, Mr. Aneurin Bevan, the Attorney-General and Mr. Lindgren; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 22nd January, and to be printed. [Bill 63.]

LAND SETTLEMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." — [Mr. Whileley.]

12.17 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: The subject to which I wish to call attention today is one which will, I feel, arouse interest in all quarters of the House as it affects very largely ex-Service men and women. It is the matter of land settlement, and I feel that this is a problem which has, in no way, yet been tackled by the Government, and a problem which requires immediate attention. I propose to divide what I have to say under four headings: first, the actual need for some plan; secondly, our experience as a sequel to the first world war; thirdly, what schemes are in existence; and fourthly, a few recommendations.
As regards the need, it falls under two headings. The first is how to supply sufficient labour to the land in order to maintain agriculture in its present state, or even in a better one, and secondly, how to provide land for those men who wish to take up their own holdings when they come out of the Forces. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture that it is no use singing "The Yeomen of England" to

the wide open spaces, when the only men there are either Germans or Italians. It is no use relying on the 10,000 men coming out under Class B, to fill that gap, because all that those men will do will be to bring the figures up to what they were before the war, or to help in that respect. I think it just as well to look at a few figures which are important. If we go back to 1878, which is probably the beginning of the agricultural decline, we find that agricultural workers then numbered 898,731 not including farmers, bailiffs, foremen or shepherds. That figure steadily went down, and the highest it ever reached after the first world war, was 587,000. By 1938 we have the rather pathetic figure of 381,704. I believe that the revival of agriculture during this war has put the industry in a state in which it is going to need a great many more men than the 381,000 which it had before the war, and I believe that that problem cannot be tackled too seriously.
I pass on to the experience of what happened after the first world war. In 1916 there was a Report of a Departmental Committee which had been asked by the President of the Board of Agriculture to report on resettlement on the land of ex-soldiers and sailors. I think 1916 is rather a significant date, in that it was well before the end of that war. The report was published in two parts and a very lengthy minority report was issued. The minority report said that there were three obstacles to be overcome. The first was how to ensure the return to the land of as many as possible of the men formerly engaged in agriculture. The second was how to fill the gap caused by the war; and the third, how to create in the industry a new and increased demand for labour. Today the Government are lucky, compared with the Government of that time, because only the first obstacle remains. Very largely, the demand for labour has been overcome and everyone at present in agriculture is crying out for men. We may well be deeply grateful that the gap as a result of the last war, is by no means as great as it was after the First World War. The biggest problem, as the minority report foresaw, was, and still is, to assure the return to the land of as many as possible of the men formerly engaged in agriculture.
I know I run a risk in mentioning here a subject, to deal with which would require legislation, but I mention it as a


matter of interest and think it is worth considering. The biggest bone of contention between the two reports was whether or not a minimum wage should be imposed. The minority were so afraid of an exodus from the land, let alone an inadequate return to it, that they strongly recommended the wage. On the other hand the majority were against it, on the ground that it might lead to many farmers laying down too much land to grass in order to save labour. Hon. Members who are senior to me know that both these things have been the result of the first world war. Farmers did cut down their men and, nevertheless, there was an exodus from the land. I will not put before the House today a summary of what was in the majority report, but I recommend that report to hon. Members because it contained many things which, read in a modern context, bear closely on the subject.
In 1924 the Agricultural Tribunal of Investigation made its first report and pointed to the fact that, in 1919, after the last war, 3,485 smallholdings were provided. In 1920, that figure had been more than doubled and from then onwards it dropped back again until in 1922 the figure was just over 1,000. The annual loss on that scheme worked out at £800,000, and I think it is that scheme which is, at present, frightening the Government from taking any action regarding smallholdings and supplying the need for men going on the land on their own. I would like to ask the Minister if he considers the present conditions of agriculture such as he would like to maintain as normal conditions. If the present conditions of agriculture are what he aims at, as being normal, I would say that the argument against smallholdings very largely falls to the ground, because one of the things which that committee in 1916 recommended, was the establishment of smallholdings for ex-Service men with experience in agriculture. Those who were not to have land of their own, were the inexperienced. The Minister knows what did in fact occur, and I will not try to draw his attention further to it. I honestly suggest to him that the mere fact that a great many ex-Service men after the last war did fall by the wayside, is no reason today to curtail any plan for smallholdings. If he does say that the state of agriculture at the moment is one

that he wishes to maintain in the years to come, I believe that the smallholder has a part to play in it.
I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman could say today why he left out the phrase "well balanced" in his agricultural statement recently. That statement originated with my right hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) some while back. It was reiterated by the present Lord Privy Seal on 11th February, 1942. The words "well balanced" have since been left out, and it is well to remember how the Scott Report appreciated that particular phrase—" a well balanced agriculture." They defined it as follows:
 The continuance and revival of the traditional mixed character of British farming.
Does the Minister agree with that? If he does, will heexplain later why he left out the words "well balanced "? I hope he will give us a reason to show that agriculture, in a well balanced form, has a place for smallholdings.
I come to the third point, which concerns the various schemes existing at the moment. I think the right hon.Gentleman has received resolutions from certain county councils showing that they are very anxious about the establishment of ex-Service men on the land in smallholdings. I therefore suggest to him that, as soon as he possibly can, he should issue some statement on the Government's policy about smallholdings. The statement he has made in reply to questions so far, would point to the fact that not only is he against the extension of smallholdings but that he would, given half a chance, abolish those which are already there. I would like him to give an absolutely categorical statement, and show the way the wind is blowing for these people. There are other schemes in existence and I hope some of them may be made available to the ex-Service men. In particular there are the Land Settlement Association estates. The working of these estates during the war has been remarkable. The figures I have been given show that anything from £ 500 to £ 1,000 has been made by a holding as small as four acres during the war. These men have been working on a centralised buying and marketing basis.
One of the biggest bones of contention in the matter of smallholdings is that of


co-operation. There are in this country many people who look upon any form of co-operation as automatically implying that they become members of the Co-operative movement, and I think some of them do not want to be members of that movement. Therefore, it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to point out to these smallholders that while it is the opinion of the Government that smallholdings, to be successful, should be worked on a centralised buying and marketing basis, it is not essential for the smallholders to become members of the Co-operative movement in order to achieve that end. There is also, of course, the Welsh Land Settlement Scheme, which works on a purely co-operative basis and comprises five big farms—

12.31 p.m.

ROYAL ASSENT.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Finance (No. 2) Act, 1945.
2. Isle of Man (Customs) Act, 1945.
3. Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1945.
4. Workmen's Compensation (Pneu-moconiosis) Act, 1945.
5. Police (Overseas Service) Act, 1945.
6. Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945.
7. Bretton Woods Agreements Act, 1945-
8. Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945.
9. Elections and Jurors Act, 1945.
10. East Grinstead Gas and Water Act, 1945.
11. Wallasey Corporation Act, 1945.
12. Plympton St. Mary Rural District Council Act, 1945.

LAND SETTLEMENT

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."

12.41 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: On the subject of the Land Settlement Association, one of the great points about it is that many of the men— in fact, I think, all the men—on those estates were without

previous agricultural experience when they went there. They proved that with centralised marketing and buying, the in-experienced man as well as the experienced man can make a success of the land, but one of the most important points about that is that the manager of an estate must be a really first-class man. That is one of the most important features of all the successful smallholding businesses, because, if the manager is not satisfactory and the men themselves on the estates do not have very much experience, there is little chance of success.
I would like to say a word about what the British Legion is doing, because I believe the British Legion's advice is just as well informed and just as welcome to men coming out of the, Forces this time, as it was after the first world war. They are making it quite clear to men who individually wish to set up in this sort of business that they should not do so unless they are fully aware of the dangers they run. They are being encouraged in every possible way to go into some centralised form of small holding. In passing, I would like also to mention the cottage homestead type of holding, of which there were tens of thousands in Germany before this war, and I think they were aiming at many more. Those homesteads consist of holdings from one-eighth of an acre or one-third of an acre upwards. They lend themselves readily to the badly disabled man who wants a bit of land of his own. I hope the Government will give some consideration to the question of giving that type of holding to the badly disabled man.
As regards the Government's present scheme for training, I think, on paper, that scheme, which was introduced last June, reads quite well. But if one takes the very encouraging figures of releases — 108,000 men each week— and the light hon. Gentleman's promise that we are to get 10,000 men under Class B back to agriculture, the figure which he gave me in reply to a Question the other day, namely, that only 823 people, including men and women, had applied for training under that scheme, is a most disastrous figure. I would therefore beg the right hon. Gentleman to take all possible action to give as much publicity to the scheme as he feels is fitting, in view of his desire to re-establish agriculture.
Before I leave this heading I think the Minister should know that I have heard of a recent case in which an ex-Service man from this last war applied for a smallholding and was told that he must put his name on a waiting list of 10 years' standing and would not be given priority over men whose names were already on that list If that is going to be the policy for smallholdings I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not leave the country in any doubt. I should like to see him give ex-Service men priority. He may have reasons for not doing so, and if he has I would ask him to come into the open and tell the country. At the moment I do not know how many of those 823 who have applied for training have offered to go on the land on their own. I am certain that if the Forces are, as they are often held up to be, a cross-section of the nation at large, from that cross-section we shall get some men who want to go back on to the land and have their own holdings and be independent.
To sum up, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give an assurance that he will take some real and immediate steps to speed up the training scheme. I hope he will also release the Government's policy on smallholdings, because at the moment everyone is in the dark, including the present smallholders, and they too should be considered in this matter of land settlement. If he is in favour of continuing smallholdings, and even expanding them, I hope that one thing which he will do above all else is to call for a report from his many, many officials as to where the smallholdings should be. It is by no means true to say that smallholdings can be established anywhere about England. One of the main causes of some of the failures after the first world war was that smallholdings were put in the wrong places, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take steps to decide here and now where these smallholdings should be, if they are to be anywhere at all. I hope he will approve a continuation of the smallholdings policy, because it is a very fine one and one of the most truly British things we have; but if he has his reasons for not doing so I only ask him to come into the open and tell the House.
Finally, I would like him to give some indication of how long prisoners of war are to be employed here, because I believe

a great many people are shying off the land for the simple reason that they see that the Italians are being replaced by Germans. The Germans may be here for two, three or goodness knows how many years, and no indication is being given of how the trainees from the training courses set up by the Government are to be employed. The last paragraph of the training scheme is a very disappointing one. It says:
 Employment after Training. It is anticipated that many training employers will wish to give employment to trainees who have satisfactorily completed training with them, but in any case the Ministry of Agriculture, through the county committees, will take all practicable steps to ensure that satisfactory trainees are found suitable employment on the land.
I asked the right hon. Gentleman the other day, and I ask him now, whether in his opinion that is a fair proposition to a man who expects to go on to the land for the rest of his working days, because if he thinks so I honestly do not.

The Minister ofAgriculture (Mr. Williams): Surely the hon. and gallant Member will agree that I made it transparently clear in this House that where civilian labour was available farmers should not be supplied with either Italian or German prisoners.

Major Legge-Bourke: Yes, the right hon. Gentleman said that, but the prisoners are still in this country, and as long as there is no indication of when their employment in agriculture will stop I do not believe he will get the maximum number of applications from men coming out of the Forces to go into his training scheme.
I have not mentioned housing or Scotland, on which matters I hope other Members will supply the information and will raise any other points. Housing is a very important thing, probably one of the most important sides of the smallholdings problem. I would say one thing about it, that one of the recommendations of the 1916 Report was that it would be advisable that the War Department's hutments should be handed over free to the Ministry of Agriculture. There are many camp sites where water is laid on and where there are almost prefabricated houses, and I believe that position would help the immediate problem. Lastly, I would beg the right hon. Gentleman to try to give a Christmas present to the ex-Service


men, because he has an ideal opportunity to do so, and to give a Christmas present not only to them but to agriculture and, indeed, to the whole country.

12.52 p.m.

Mr. Gooch: There is a big school of thought in this country which subscribes to the view that the future of British agriculture lies in the direction of large-scale mechanised farming, but despite that we are faced with the fact that, disregarding holdings not exceeding five acres in extent, 85 per cent. of farms in Britain, representing 47 per cent. of the cultivated land, do not exceed 150 acres. I hope there is still a place in this country for the small farmer. I approach this question of land settlement from the human standpoint. When industry gets going in this country we hope that there will be very few unemployed. The enthusiasts for land settlement in the past have always regarded the land as a sink for the unemployed. I agree that some land settlement schemes have proved eminently successful, and that under them quite a number of men have done extremely well, but at the same time I am convinced that to use land settlement schemes as a remedy for industrial unemployment when they are under voluntary organisations and have the help of public and charitable funds is not the right solution. I say so because those concerned in dealing with the question in that way are inclined to overlook the human factor.
I live in the country. I am one of those men who can see beauty in a country lane in December. I love works of art, but to me there is nothing so beautiful as the natural art of the countryside. Townsmen's views of the country are entirely different. They see the mud and the poor roads and houses.To make a real success of land settlement schemes the men we are catering for must have an inbred love of the country. Large-scale farming appeals to me because it offers an opportunity to the workers to specialise, with opportunities for advancement and better pay. We all welcomed the announcement this morning that those in the Services are to receive increased pay, some men up to £5 a week. Those men will be paid up to £ 5 a week for learning to destroy life. May I suggest that we might consider the possibility of paying men up to £ 5 a week in return for

the art of preserving life? Dr. Orwin, in a recent book, has had something pertinent to say about land settlement. He points out that the common ground in every policy of reconstruction for British agriculture is the assumption that it is ordained to be an industry of little individualists farming little holdings with little knowledge of the physical and biological sciences upon which the success of all their technical work depends. I hope that if the small man does remain in agriculture he will be able to take full advantage of all that the new agricultural advisory service will have to offer, and in mentioning that I express the hope that that advisory service will not overlook that the farm worker today plays a big part in agricultural production.
I would rather see land settlement proceed on a basis of smallholdings administered by county councils. We must be warned by the results of wholesale development after the last war, but I think we learned enough during those years to put us on our guard in connection with future schemes and I feel that the county councils as a whole will be able to avoid the pitfalls which were experienced at that time. Some men who took up smallholdings then have had years of drudgery and slavery, and it took another war to enable many of them to repay the money which they borrowed when they entered upon their holdings. There is, again, a clam our for land for ex-Service men and others. Men come to me and say, "I fought for this country and I think I am entitled to a bit of it," and that is a strong argument which one has to face, but in considering applications made by ex-Service men and others we must be kind and firm with the men. We realise that many of them are not approaching this question with the idea of making money but to provide themselves with a way of life that appeals to them, and like the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) I hope that the Minister is giving thought to a policy for smallholdings and that we shall very soon have a declaration from the Government.
I have been interested in this question from several standpoints. I had the honour to serve as President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and a number of our members are smallholders and quite a number are potential smallholders. I serve as a member of the


smallholdings committee of my county council of Norfolk, the county which is very near to the top of the tree in the number of smallholders and the acreage that it manages. I am also interested as a member of the agricultural committee of the County Councils' Association. As I cannot say it to the Minister, may I say to his Parliamentary Secretary that there is in the possession of the Ministry plenty of evidence collected by the County Councils' Association to show that in many counties there is still a considerable demand for smallholdings? In Norfolk we have a long waiting list of some hundreds. That waiting list consists of men who have been passed by the smallholdings committee, which itself is composed of practical men, and there is a long waiting list of applicants who have been approved in respect of experience, ability and finance.
The county councils of Norfolk do not stand alone in this. Others have long waiting lists which they want to reduce, but they cannot do so until the Minister has made up his mind as to the future of the smallholdings movement. I want to secure for the rural dweller an income and amenities equal to those enjoyed by people in the towns. That is why I am inclined to favour large-scale farming, with the machine taking the drudgery out of the work, or, as an alternative to large units, work on a co-operative basis. Whilst I am of opinion that smallholdings cannot be made the bass of a progressive agricultural policy, I say, that where they are granted, the smallholders should be empowered to make the fullest use of modern scientific knowledge. By a proper system of management, I think they could be made economically successful. It is essential there should be a system of co-operation between smallholders by means of bulk purchasing, collective marketing and the pooling of machinery. These things, alone, can bring to the smallholder the advantages of large-scale cultivation.

1.2 p.m.

Major Sir Basil Neven-Spence: It is my good fortune to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Gooch) who has just made a most excellent maiden speech, the speech of one who has, obviously, been in close contact with this

industry all his life. It was full of practical points, and a most valuable contribution to the Debate. I am sure we shall all be glad to hear him again when ho addresses the House on this and other subjects. He seemed to throw a little doubt on the future place of smallholdings in land settlement. There are people in the country who think that the day of the smallholder is past. If that should be so, it would be a bad thing for England, for two out of every three holdings in this country are, in fact, smallholdings. It would be even worse for the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, where smallholdings outnumber big farms by ten to one. I got the impression that the hon. Member thought that a policy of smallholdings was not one consistent with progressive agriculture. I would like the hon. Gentleman, some day, to come with me to the County of Orkney when I would show him a county almost wholly composed of smallholdings, where the average holding is only 30 acres and which community is beyond doubt one of the most progressive in the whole of Great Britain. The production there per head of population exceeds even that of Denmark.
The truth is the smallholder can be just as successful as the big farmer, given certain conditions. His holding must be properly sited and properly equipped, and it must be of a size suited to the kind of production in which he is engaged. More than that, a smallholder must have the aptitude for the work, the knowledge, the practical experience, and he must have one other supremely important thing, a wife who likes the life. Given these conditions, he can do every bit as well as the large fanner and, in fact, in some respects, he is better placed. He has not got to pay for labour and he gains in that he, personally, looks after his stock. I am a profound believer in the Arabs' proverb that, "Theeye of the master maketh the horse fat." There is no denying that it is a strenuous life and the smallholder will not have much leisure, but he will get a moderate degree of prosperity, and, from the point of view of the community, smallholders, as a class, are very desirable people to have—independent, self-reliant, thrifty and industrious.
One point I want to stress very strongly is that land settlement, by the creation


of smallholdings, should not be an aim in itself. By neglecting to do the right thing, or doing the wrong thing in the past, many poor results have been achieved. The tendency has, too often, been to play for numbers rather than for really successful settlement. A sound policy which is going to benefit the people to be settled on the land, as well as the State, must be based on something more than the attainment of mere numbers. I want hon. Members to look at what the basis of a sound land settlement policy ought to be. There are three main aims to be achieved. The first, and most obvious is to stop the drift from the land into the towns and, if possible, to increase the rural population. We must keep our agricultural workers on the land. Another most important point—which I cannot develop today—is the question of rural education in relation to the future of the agricultural industry. It is the young people to whom we must look for land settlement. Unless they are helped towards their future by the education they get in rural schools, the tendency will be for them to make for the towns rather than the land. The next aim is to meet the demand for land. This is a demand which you may get, and do get, from the agricultural workers and, to a lesser extent, from dwellers in towns. Thirdly, there is the settlement of special classes, more particularly ex-Servicemen and industrial unemployed.
With regard to the first aim, preventing the drift from the countryside to the town, I confess I cannot find any very great evidence of outstanding success. This land settlement policy has been pursued a good deal longer in Scotland than in England. It began 50 years ago in the Highlands and Islands, and 25 years ago it was applied to the whole of Scotland and has gone on consistently since then. In those 25 years, although we have created 4,584 new holdings in Scotland, the total number of agricultural holdings in individual occupation has decreased. That does not look like an outstanding success, but, at least, you can claim for it that it has prevented the drift of perhaps another 5,000 people away from the land. That is an achievement, and there are other aspects quite as encouraging— increased population in successful settlements and increased production. That, of course, applies more particularly

to the dairy farm type of settlement. Where the settlement has been made by breaking up an arable farm, and creating a number of small arable holdings, the results have not been particularly successful. Generally, there are no more people on the land and no increased production. Too often, what has happened is that a thoroughly efficient arable unit has been broken up and turned into a number of not very efficient smallholdings.
Attempts have been made to reverse the drift from the land by settling town-dwellers, but I do not propose to devote any time to that at all. About 1,000 of these settlements were made in the industrial belt in Scotland between 1934 and 1937 and they have not been really satisfactory. I do not know what the trouble is, but it is probably too big a change for the average town dweller, accustomed as he is to his weekly wage packet, to take the long view and plan for next year and, perhaps, for the year after that.For one reason or another, these holdings have not been successful. A number of them have become simply residences for old people and very offer the land is let to farmers. In many cases the land is neglected. The truth about that type of settlement is that a very careful selection was exercised at the beginning, and the people so selected tended to be successful. Where it fell down was that too many smallholdings were created and many of the people selected were unsuitable.
The second point I mentioned was the demand for land. That, of course, was the principal reason for the land settlement legislation that affects Scotland In the last 30 years, there have been 33,000 applications for holding in Scotland, and it is interesting to note that, of this number, 13,000 were subsequently withdrawn, 8,000 have been met and there are still 12,000 outstanding. That point has come up in the course of the Debate. We should not be misled by the very large number of applications not satisfied. A great many of these arereally paper applications. It is a common thing in Scotland for a man to register for a smallholding who, when a holding becomes available in another part of Scotland, will not take it because he wants to be near his home and relatives, and near the market he knows.
The third point I mentioned was the settlement of special classes. This is where


the greatest mistake of all has been made in our policy— in settling ex-Servicemen and unemployed industrial men between the wars, although I know, in the latter case, some of those settled on the Settlements Association holdings were successful in England. I have seen some, and there is no doubt they have been successful, but I am afraid, all too frequently, in dealing with ex-Servicemen and unemployed industrial men our aim has been to go for numbers and that far too little consideration has been given to the prospects of the settlers themselves. Far too little attention has been paid to the aptitude of the man and to his training. Settlements were created in a hurry, many of the men were only half trained and heavily subsidised, and were doomed from the start to bitter disappointment and failure. They were not established when the slump came and were in no condition to see it out. We ought to put the blame for this where it belongs. I am not blaming any Government, still less the officials in the Ministry of Agriculture in England or the Department of Agriculture in Scotland. The blame belongs to us, fairly and squarely, because the reason why this policy went wrong was owing to political pressure exercised by Members of Parliament. I hope we shall never have a repetition of that. It has had a disastrous effect on land settlement and has led to a great waste of public money in many directions.
I cannot state too emphatically that the wholesale placing of unqualified persons on the land simply because they belong to a particular section of the community — ex-Servicemen or industrial unemployed men— cannot be too strongly condemned. Experience has now taught us, and we have learned the lesson, that land settlement cannot make any spectacular contribution either to the settlement of ex-Servicemen or to reducing mass unemployment. The truth is that the time factor is against us. We ought to look at land settlement primarily as an agricultural problem, and not as a relief scheme. We have had exactly the same problem in the crofting areas of the Highlands and Islands, although it had a slightly different emphasis. The pressure there was due to the large number of men to be dealt with, whilst the amount of land available was small. Owing to the political pressure which has

been exercised there, holdings have been set up again and again which were far too small and were not economic units. I cannot deplore too much the placing of men on holdings upon which they can never make a living.
I am in great sympathy with the Government in their decision to proceed with rather more caution on this occasion, and to concentrate on the training of men for settlement on the land, and give them practical experience. I do not believe we shall have anything like the same number of applications for settlement on the land after this war that we had after the last war, but there will be a number. I think it was the hon. Member for North Norfolk who said he could see beauty in the countryside in December. There speaks the true countryman. The greatest possible care should be taken to "vet," if I may use the expression, the men who make applications to go on the land. There are a number of reasons which may move such people to make those applications, and some of them are thoroughly bad. A man may be dissatisfied with the form of employment he had before the war. He may think that settlement on the land is an easy way toget a house. He may like to live an open-air life or he may have romantic ideas about the countryside. He may have been fed up with his sergeant-major and think that the country will offer him a nice quiet life, although in reality he is only exchanging one sergeant-major for another and more exacting one—Nature. I regard all those reasons as bad.

Mr. Gooch: May I inform the hon. and gallant Member that out of 500 odd applications in Norfolk almost all were considered by experts who passed only thosewith practical experience?

Sir B. Neven-Spence: I am very glad to hear it. That is the right way to go about it, because then you get fewer misfits. There must be a real desire in a man not only to live on the land but to work there. A period of probation is absolutely essential, and if it is done properly a man will not take very long to settle down. Three classes of people will be found. First, there will be those suitable to take charge of a smallholding. These will be the men with practical experience who were engaged on the land before the war. Others can be placed as


agricultural workers. Finally, there will be some persons who quite obviously would be better to find other occupations. The unsuitable people cannot be weeded out too quickly. Another reason for caution, as was discovered after the last war, is that it is a very costly business to go into a smallholding of any size, at the present time. High prices are still ruling. If a man takes over a smallholding just now he is probably starting with a heavy burden of debt.
I want to say one or two words about the size of holdings. The State should avoid the creation of uneconomic holdings, which are fair neither to the man himself nor to the taxpayer. The creation of smallholdings is costly to the State and costly to the smallholder. If a holding is not going to be worked efficiently it would be better not to attempt it at all. We cannot lay down any hard and fast rule about the size of holdings. The criterion must be the type of production in which the smallholder engages. For instance, the family sheep farm should be one carrying not less than 20 to 30 score of ewes, or the pastoral holding five to 10 score of ewes and a percentage of cattle. The poultry holding should be big enough to carry at least 500 hens, a dairy holding 15 cows, and so on. The goal to be aimed at depends upon the locality and the type of production. The critical question is, Will this smallholding which is being set up enable the man to be fully employed and to make a proper living?
It is a great mistake to break up efficient mechanised farms. It is better for the State and for everybody that they should continue. That being so, where is the land to come from? There is an enormous amount of land in the hands of the State now, acquired during the war, and a great deal of it should be used for smallholdings. The suggestion I want to put across is that I think there might be a fresh approach to this matter. We are accustomed now to the idea of servicing land for housing schemes;why not let us service land for the creation of small holdings? I would like to illustrate what I mean from an actual example. I saw recently in the county of Orkney a case in which a man who was not a farmer, took over 400 acres of waterlogged land which had never been cultivated. It was covered with a thin layer

of peat, and by those kinds of grasses that the good farmer least likes to see growing on the pasture. It was quite useless land. This man drained the land. He had enough money to provide himself with mechanical draining plant, caterpillar tractor, prairie buster plough and other heavy implements. At the end of four years, what had been useless land by all standards, utterly useless, was land on which he was fattening cattle on the grass, and marketing them in the top grade.
That land has been permanently gained for the nation. There is any amount of land like that, and not merely in Orkney. I see no reason why the production of that county could not be doubled. All over the country there is land of that type available, not land on which we can settle men quickly, but land which would lend itself to reclamation by carrying out essential draining and cultivation, so that it could be laid down to grass. That is one of the problems that might be taken up by county agricultural committees. I do not think it would require any legislation to do this for Scotland. It could best be done in that way. The ordinary individual cannot afford to do it. I have covered all the points I wanted to make. It is exceedingly important that the Government should bear those points in mind, if they wish to avoid making the kind of mistake that was made after the last war.

1.25 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. Collick): A few weeks ago my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture announced the Government's new agricultural policy. I think it is true that agriculturists generally, certainly the organisations of farmers and farm workers, have acclaimed that declaration as the greatest peace time agricultural policy ever announced by a Government of this country. At the moment, we are occupied in working out its more detailed application. It naturally follows that there will be matters which will fall due for consideration in harmony with the more detailed plans. I certainly would not rule out the wider implications of the subject that has been debated this morning. We should do well to remember our experience after the last war on this matter. Members in all parts of the House, and certainly on the Benches be-


hind me, will recall hundreds of cases of men who saw their gratuity and their small earnings go west because of land sharks and other disreputable people. I imagine that it is common ground among us that the utmost consideration will need to be given in working out detailed proposals of this kind.
There seem to me to be some rather obvious points arising out of this matter. First of all, in the immediate years ahead we shall need the greatest possible food production from the soil of this country. I do not know whether some of the suggestions that have been made this morning in regard to the further breaking up of holdings could be considered, if they interfered with food production. I agree with many of the points that were made by the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence). These days, when prices are near their highest level and the capital cost of equipment is very high, are hardly the time to consider in great detail plans of that kind.There is the further point that allotting land is one thing, but putting a man there without equipment is something different, and is useless. This involves an enormous number of building trade workers and ancillary workers, who are in very short supply.It would be wrong to assume in this regard that there is any extreme urgency, having regard to the major issues to which I have referred.
Reference to the movement of labour from the countryside in prewar times was made by the opener of the Debate. We are all only too well aware of that. It is a happening that everybody deplores, but he ought to remind himself that certainly this Government were not responsible for it. I think it is commonly agreed that the condition of the workers on the land were not suchin those days as to encourage anyone to stay on the land. We could hardly expect, in the light of the then conditions, that those workers would do other than migrate from the villages to the towns, and that is exactly what happened. Over a whole period of years the countryside lost thousands of its best men, who left the villages and crowded into the towns because of the appalling conditions in the countryside.
One of the big things facing any Government, and certainly one of the big

jobs facing thisGovernment if we are to be able to repopulate rural England, is the question of amenities and rural housing. We talk about wages, and I know the agricultural worker sunions have very strong views on that subject, but unless we get the houses in the countryside, of a standard comparable to the modern houses we knew in the towns before the war, there will obviously be very great difficulties in getting the labour force that is needed in rural areas. It is because of these considerations that the Ministry for which I speak has not been slow in making its desires known to the Minister of Health, who is mainly responsible for housing in rural areas. As those plans unfold I think we shall break the back of this really big problem of giving country workers housing conditions which will encourage them to remain on the land rather than drive them to the towns.

Major Legge-Bourke: I think the hon. Gentleman has slightly misunderstood my argument. I was not trying to suggest that men should be put into small holdings straight away, but that, unless some indication of future prospects can be given to the men coming out of the Forces, they will not go on the land, and will never be persuaded to go there once they have gone somewhere else.

Mr. Collick: One big indication which has been given, and I think we are beginning to see its effect now, is the declaration of this Government's agricultural policy. It is quite easy to see that that is having some really practical effect now. Because of all these considerations, and of the enormous changes which have taken place in agriculture during the war years— increased mechanisation, improved technique and other developments— it is most desirable that men going back into the agricultural industry should have every facility for proper training, and for equipping themselves with the technical knowledge necessary to bring the industry to the high pitch of efficiency which I am sure everybody desires. It is for that reason that the training schemes have been brought into being. They make provision for men coming out of the Army, both able-bodied and, in certain cases, disabled, to receive proper training. In the case of the men who have had no agricultural training whatever, the scheme enables them to have 12 months at a farm, with maintenance


allowances, so that they can equip themselves properly with modern knowledge of the practical side of the industry. At the moment we have something like 15,000 farmers listed as capable of training men and willing to take them astrainees, and we want increasing numbers of suitable men to take advantage of the scheme. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland that it is very desirable, in these matters, that the wife of the prospective agricultural worker should also be willing to go on the land. We have long since passed the days when we could talk about "three acres and a cow." That sort of romanticism has gone, and we have to make a more practical approach to the problem. We arc hoping that the provisions of the training scheme will do much towards giving people more confidence and qualifications in that direction.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Are the 15,000 farmers listed all in England or is Scotland included?

Mr. Collick: I think the figure covers both England and Scotland. The point I am making is that there is no shortage in that direction. Perhaps I ought to take this opportunity of saying a word about the resettlement grants scheme, since the question of training has figured so largely in the Debate. The agricultural departments will shortly announce the introduction of a scheme, similar to the resettlement grants scheme of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, for men and women who were working on their own holdings before undertaking whole time paid service in His Majesty's Forces, the Merchant Navy or the Defence Services, in order to assist them to restart holdings of their own for commercial food production—a term which, by the way, includes pig and poultry keeping, market gardening, and the other forms of horticulture. In suitable cases the scheme will apply also to persons disabled as the result of war service, even though they were not farming on their own account before joining up. A disabled person inexperienced in agriculture may, however, be required to complete satisfactorily a course of free instruction under the Ministry's training scheme as a prerequisite to receiving a grant. As under the Ministry of Labour scheme, the maximum grant will be £ 150 but grants will be made of course only to

those who show that their financial resources are otherwise insufficient.

Major John Morrison: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that ex-Servicemen or farmers setting up now cannot get rations for pigs and poultry?

Mr. Collide: We are very conscious of that. In view of the desirability of interviewing applicants and giving them an opportunity of stating their cases, the administration of the scheme in England and Wales is to be entrusted to the county war agricultural committees, which are being recommended to set up a small panel, on which the Ministry's Land Commissioner would sit, to receive and consider applications for grants, if necessary to interview applicants, and to decide the amount of grant. Perhaps I should say, for the information of Members, that the closing date for applications from men and women who have already returned to civil life is 31st May next, while those who are not yet released from the Services will be able to make application within six months of the date of their release.

Major Legge-Bourke: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I think we should have as few interruptions as possible. We are rather late on the schedule.

Major Legge-Bourkc: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether hewill take steps to see that the people who have already come out of the Forces have that information sent to them by the Service authorities?

Mr. Collick: We shall, within the course of a few days, bring it to the notice of those concerned. We have been working the scheme out in detail, and the moment it is ready to put into print it will be circulated through the usual channels. We are naturally anxious that all those who are interested should know as much as possible about it
I will conclude by returning to what we consider to be the really important thing in this business, and that is to deal adequately with the housing question in the countryside. There are obviously difficulties because of the great demands on building labour and the need to see that such labour is only occupied on the most urgent priority work, but we intend to do our best to secure the houses and


amenities for the countryside. If we can get them, we have reasonable hopes of getting the workers, but if we cannot get housing conditions that are worth while, frankly, we can hardly expect people to go to the countryside for agricultural work.

ARMY OFFICERS (DEFERRED RELEASE)

1.40 p.m.

Brigadier Low: I would like to raise the question of the retention of Army officers who are due for release. I hope that the Financial Secretary to the War Office will come in shortly and listen to what I have to say, because if he does not he will be answering in the air. In making my remarks I wish to refer not only to the deferred groups 21 to 24, but to the practice, growing more and more frequent of deferring officers on the ground of military necessity. This is an urgent matter.

Squadron-Leader Sir Gifford Fox: On a point of Order. Is it not generally the custom that the Minister responsible should be present when a subject like this is raised?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of Order. The Minister has been in and has gone out. Arrangements have been made to send for him.

Brigadier Low: May we wait?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: No.

Brigadier Low: This matter is urgent. because we are now going into Recess for a month, and we have had many assurances from the Secretary of State for War, and only the other day from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, that the practice of deferring officers would cease. When my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Solihull (Lieut.-Colonel Lindsay) asked on Tuesday for an assurance that no further hold-up of officers beyond demobilisation dates would take place, the Secretary of State replied:
 I cannot at present give that assurance."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th December, 1945; Vol. 417, c. 1247.]
He also said that he is still working out the requirements of officers for the spring of 1946. Perhaps the remarks which I

and some of my hon. Friends have to address to the House will assist him.
My object in raising the question today is to get the War Office to do one or all of the following things: first of all, to release back to industry and work of all types at home where they are so badly needed, all those officers who would have been released if they had not had commissions and who are not operationally necessary; secondly, to restrict the operation of the military necessity clause—I believe this practice of deferring officers on grounds of military necessity has been given the name of DOV, which is rather an ironic way of indicating the misuse of the scheme of deferment on grounds of military necessity, which was obviously designed for the continuance of a state of war in the Far East; thirdly, I should like him to reassure us about the system of granting commissions.
Are enough officers being granted commissions and, in connection with that, is he satisfied that the delay in the Service Departments in publishing the conditions of service for officers of the future Army, Navy and Air Force is not having a bad effect upon the number of officers remaining? Fourthly—and this is as important as the other three together—I want him to confirm or otherwise the many promises, forecasts and hopes which have been held out by his right hon. Friend and which were, as I said before, repeated only the other day by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour.
I raise this question not on behalf of any one section of the community, but purely on the grounds of national interest. If the hon. Gentleman does not accept that it is in the interests of the nation that we should get as many skilled, energetic men, full of drive, who are so badly needed in all walks of life, back here, perhaps he will accept at any rate that it is in the interests of some of his right hon. Friends, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Health, and the President of the Board of Trade, to mention only a few.
The fate of those officers, following the statements made by the Secretary of State for War on 16th October, has gone unnoticed largely because of the fact that, as the Secretary of State said, the officers who are affected by the decision will accept it in good spirit. Of course they will,


but it is not right that we in the House should neglect the bad results which come from the wholesale deferment of these groups simply because the officers who have been deferred do not make such a fuss as some other members of the community. As I understand it, the reason given for the deferment of these troops was that Field-Marshal Montgomery and Field-Marshal Alexander found they were short of officers. I accept that. My own short visits to Germany proved to my satisfaction that there is a very great shortage of officers in the B.A.O.R. I believe that to be absolutely true amongst those troops who were lately under Field-Marshal Alexander's command. I believe it to be due to the fact that, as the war in Europe ended, young officers were sent out to the Far East, and it is due a little to the demands of military government.
Those conditions, however, do not apply to other theatres throughout the world, and yet the deferment has been made general. So far the only ground on which the Government have justified this treatment of the problem is that the Secretary of State of War demands that there should be equality of treatment as between various theatres. I am one of those who are quite certain that, as a general proposition applied to the Bevin scheme of demobilisation as a whole, it is a cornerstone of that scheme that there should be equality of treatment between theatres. That is absolutely vital. I am sure the Government should not depart from that scheme. But why, when they have departed from the proper use of the military necessity clause in the Bevin scheme, should they come slinking back to it on this point and choose to justify their wholesale deferment of groups of officers in these groups all over the world by reference to this principle, which becomes inapplicable immediately you break the principle of fairness by misusing the military necessity clause? I see no reason to suppose it will affect the morale of the Army in any way. I am sufficiently confident of the loyaltyand understanding of the officers who will be affected. I see no reason to suppose that we want to apply this principle of equality of treatment to the officers in these groups. By now there may be other reasons to justify the Government's action. If there are other reasons, let the Government say so. I

and many of my hon. Friends are not satisfied that it is necessary to defer officers at home who are doing nothing, officers in the Middle East who are doing very little, or officers in India and the Far East who may or may not be doing a lot — perhaps we shall hear about that— merely because there is a shortage, and a very understandable shortage, of officers in the B.A.O.R., the B.T.A. and some other parts of the Mediterranean.
On this matter I would like to refer particularly to the Indian Army. The Indian Army is in a peculiar position in this regard because, as I understand it, no part of the Indian Army was serving either in the B.A.O.R. or in that part of the Central Mediterranean Forces which was affected by the shortage of officers at the time. Therefore, I fail to see any justification for saying that there are any grounds for deferring officers of these groups belonging to the Indian Army. Many arguments have been put forward before—and I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for India has them in mind—showing the different conditions of service in the Indian Army. It may be that there is a very good reason for the shortage of officers in the Indian Army. I have had letters from officers in the Indian Army who have been serving in the Middle East, and some of whom are now in India, who say that there is no shortage of officers in that particular part of the world. There may be a shortage of officers further East. If so, and if that is a justification for wholesale deferment, perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will let the House know.
I now pass to the question of how long this deferment is going on. Is the Army going to be less short of officers in the later groups? It is quite clear that, since the Government have not yet made up their mind about the deferment of officers in the future, they may find it difficult to answer that question. I ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office to remember that there have been, if not definite promises, very optimistic forecasts made by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War and other Ministers on this subject. On 16th October, when the Secretary of State announced his decision to defer these groups, he said:
It is confidently hoped that these deferred groups, in the case of military and A.T.S. officers respectively, will be rapidly released


as soon as the balance is restored, and that the provisional dates of release already announced for subsequent groups will be very little affected, if at all." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th October, 1945; Vol. 414, c. 925.]
Then, in reply to the Debate on the Adjournment on 8th November, when the same matter was raised on slightly different grounds, the Secretary of State said:
Groups 25, 26 and 27, then take their place in the ordinary release groups. I hope that is pretty clear." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th November, 1945; Vol. 415, c. 1569.]
Only the other day, on 14th December, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour said that even the officers of Groups 26 to 28 would be out by the end of May. I am a little dubious of some of the promises or expressions of hope by the Secretary of State for War, because he did add in his statement:
This Measure will not result in officers being held in this country doing nothing." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th October, 1945; Vol. 414, c. 925.]
Only a week ago, in a Question to the Minister, I mentioned the case of an officer doing nothing, and I know that many hon. Members know of many cases of officers in these groups doing nothing at all at home. The most important point on which I think these promises are going to prove to have been in vain lies in one example of the misuse of the military necessity clause. I have in front of me a note of an Order of the B.A.O.R. issued on 13th December which refers to Group 22 being released between 10th and 24th January, quite in accordance with the statement made by the Secretary of State for War, and then goes on to say:
 Officers will be warned that extensive deferred operational devices will be necessary in certain arms. At the earliest possible moment information will be given of the arms, age and service groups affected, and the likely periods of retention. Definite arrangements for return to civil life should not be made until receipt of this information.
That is a grave departure from the spirit of the promises that have been given. If it is necessary now, it will probably be necessary in the future. When the Financial Secretary replies, I hope he will touch on that point. I think what I have said so far should satisfy the House that the position is not good. I would like now to touch on another problem; where more officers are to come from if more officers are to be needed, or where perhaps we can save officers. I will deal

with the latter point first. I believe great play has been made in this House of the overstaffing of headquarters. When I went to Germany I had personal experience of seeing what was happening in the cutting down of headquarters. I am quite satisfied—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will confirm what I say—that very thorough steps were taken to restrict the size of that headquarters to the very minimum. I saw some rather quaking officers waiting to go in front of the Staff Duties Section of the Headquarters which seemed ready to axe right and left people whose positions could not be justified. I hope the same system is being adopted elsewhere in the world. We have been given examples of overstaffed headquarters, and obviously there is waste.
I do not believe that the blemish lies there. I believe the blemish lies in the way in which we are getting officers at the moment. In the matter of emergency commissions, 1,500 fewer commissions were granted in the six months preceding 31st October of this year than in the previous six months. Perhaps we shall go downhill even further. If we are so short of officers, I should have thought the first thing for the War Office to do would have been to re-energise the system of granting emergency commissions. It appears that nearly 18,000 officers have been voluntarily deferred, having agreed to serve for a longer period. It appears that only 297 officers were granted Regular commissions from V.E-day to 13th November. Is that sufficient? The number is far too small. This brings me to the point I made at the beginning of my speech. Are the Government satisfied that the delay in announcing the terms and conditions of service for officers in future is not hindering them in the matter of the release of officers?
There are two other points I wish to make about officers. First, the House will agree that plans must have been made for the continuance of the war against Japan, and among those plans there must have been plans to provide officers to fill the places caused by casualties. Those casualties are not, thank God, occurring. Somewhere in the Far East there must have been a surplus of officers. What has happened to them? My second point refers to the question of indispensability. From what one hears


from individuals, there appears to be growing up a habit of treating some officers — usually the best officers and those who are most badly needed at home — as indispensable. Surely by now, six months after the end of the war in Europe and four months or so after the end of the war elsewhere, there has been time to train officers to fill the places of these so-called indispensable officers. I was always taught in the Army that no one was indispensable. I do not know whether the same doctrine applies to the Government Front Bench, but I believe it to be a truism that applies to all walks of life. I have taken up rather longer than I intended. I hope that we shall have some reassuring statement so that not only may the Financial Secretary to the War Office, the Secretary of State for War, and some Members of this House who are interested, have a happier Christmas, but that some, at least, of these officers who are affected shall be given a chance of knowing whether or not the promises which have been made to them arc to be fulfilled and whether there is any chance of the Government reconsidering the decision announced on 16th October.
I am sure that we must accept that the object of any demobilisation scheme is to get men back home to industry. I am horrified to see in a pamphlet which has been issued by the War Office that the primary objective of the release scheme— I know the difference between an object and an objective— is fairness. I am sure that it is a primary principle; I doubt whether it is an objective, and I am certain it is not an object. We want to get these men back home. I believe we have tampered with fairness on quite good grounds by keeping officers back in Europe for occupation duties. There is a good ground for that but, having tampered with fairness, do not let us make matters worse by justifying wholesale retention on the ground of fairness itself. Many of these officers have been abroad for five or six years. Most of them joined up at the beginning of the war and worked their way up to the positions they now occupy. By the very fact that they are officers, they show they have the character and ability we most require at home at present. I ask the War Office to reconsider this question. If they cannot give us an answer that is satisfactory today perhaps they might reconsider it during, or after, Christmas.

2.3 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for India (Mr. Arthur Henderson): It might be for the convenience of the House if I, at this moment, dealt with the specific point to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, namely, the postponement of the release groups 21 to 24 as regards officers serving in the Indian Army. May I at once reassure him as to the reason why the Commander-in-Chief in India decided, following the decision at the War Office with regard to British Service officers, that it was necessary to adopt the same course as regards those particular groups in relation to Indian Army officers, not merely on the grounds of uniformity, of doing something in India because it had been done in Europe. It is true to say that the policy of the Government of India has been, as far as possible, to keep in step with the British Army, not because it did not desire to do better if it could, but because it did desire to avoid not doing as well as was being done, with regard to any particular groups in the British Army itself.
Since the termination of the war against Japan, the Commander-in-Chief has been faced with very considerable difficulties, largely by reason of the increased commitments which circumstances in the Far East, especially in a country like Java, have compelled him to accept. May I say in this connection, that the suggestion of the correspondent of the hon. and gallant Gentleman that there is no shortage of officers in the Indian Army is not, I am afraid, in accordance with the facts. [Interruption.] I think, with respect, we must take the over-all position. He and I have both had military experience, and we know one can always produce an individual officer who may say he has not got sufficient to do, just as one can find other officers who have too much to do, or say they have. Therefore, I do not think we would accept that as being the general position.
As regards the over-all position, there is no doubt that there is, and has been for a considerable time, a definite shortage of officers in the Indian Army. It is common knowledge that there has been a remarkable expansion during the past five years. The Army has been increased from 200,000 to well over 2,500,000. It has been officered, and very efficiently officered, but only by bringing in a considerable number of British Service officers who


have had, to be attached to Indian units. Those British Service officers are entitled to their rates of release according to their group, and many of them have already been released from the earlier groups. Not only that, but the Indian emergency commissioned officer, as opposed to what I might call the European emergency commissioned officer, has also the same rights of release as those which apply to the European officer.
The Commander-in-Chief is, today faced with a serious shortage of officers, and it was because of that situation that he felt compelled to postpone groups 22 to 24, as has been the case with the British Army itself. May I say with regard to these particular groups, that I did give a reply some days ago, in which I indicated that it was hoped the Indian Army Command would be able to begin to release the officers of group 22 towards" the middle of next month, as is to be the case with the officers of the British Army in Europe and elsewhere. I am afraid I cannot take the matter beyond that. I hope I have deal twith the specific points to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, and I can only say that this is a matter of great concern to all those who are responsible for dealing with the Indian Army, and we can only hope that circumstances will improve so as to permit of the intensification or the expediting of the time factor in relation to the problem of the release of officers of the Indian Army.

WEEDON ORDNANCE DEPOT

2.8 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The matter I desire to raise is one concerning conditions in this country, and it is one which not only seriously affects a considerable number of my constituents, but which may also be of some considerable interest to constituencies in other parts of England. From 1885 until after D-Day, Weed on Ordnance Depot was the principal ordnance depot for the supply of small arms to the Army and throughout the British Empire. Throughout the Boer War, throughout the 1914 war, and throughout this war until after D-Day, it functioned in that capacity, and, if we can agree on nothing else, I am sure the

Financial Secretary to the War Office will join me in paying a tribute to the men and women who have worked there, for their efficiency and for their labours. From there the Army was re-equipped with small arms after Dunkirk, and from there the 21st Army group was equipped. Now that long established and successful depot is under sentence of extinction and, so far as I can ascertain, the reasons for that decision are either thoroughly bad or, in so far as they possess any merits at all, are totally inadequate.
During the war a vast area of land at Bicester was taken over by the War Department. No less than nearly £ 5 million has been spent on it. Last November— maybe now—there was a notice in the room at the depot there which said, "The bricks used in the construction of this depot would make a road 8ft. wide from London to Berlin." That is an indication of the size of that depot, all created in wartime and, I understand, intended to be the base for the operations of the 21st Army Group and a depot at which it would be possible to equip a whole Division from a tank to a rifle. I am told that it was not ready in time to be used for that purpose. I can understand the desire, if it exists, to justify in peace, by peace time use, this war time expenditure, the desire to seek to rebut in advance the suggestions that this is a War Office white elephant, but that desire if it exists is not the sole factor which should be considered. As to the advisability of centralising ordnance depots at Bicester on military grounds I am not competent to express an opinion; but, so far as locations are concerned, I would say that the location of Weed on possesses many advantages over that of Bicester. Weed on is on the L.M.S. main line, on the Watling Street, and on the Grand Union Canal. Bicester has the main road to Banbury going through it, it is on the Great Western main line to Birmingham, and on the branch L.M.S. line from Oxford to Bletchley.
Now it is proposed to transfer all the small arms work which has been done so well throughout the greater part of three wars from Weed on to Bicester. The Secretary of State, when I asked him a question on this matter, indicated that the decision to do this was based on both military and economic grounds. As I say, I am not competent to deal with military grounds though I suggest that if we were


faced with another war we should get again as great a cry for decentralisation as we had at the beginning of this war, and I suggest that the concentration of all our Army stores and small arms in one big depot in this atomic bomb age should be seriously considered. I also suggest that really it would be false economy to make this centralisation chiefly to justify the war time expenditure on a project which was not completed in time for its wartime purpose.
There is another side to this problem which requires careful consideration, and 1 think more careful consideration than has yet been given to it by His Majesty's Government. Round the depot at Weedon a community has grown up. The small arms depot is a source of employment for many in the surrounding districts. I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that something like 2,000 men, women and children are dependant for their livelihood on the existence of that depot. Prior to 1939, the work at Weedon was almost entirely done by civilians. Since 1939, soldiers and A.T.S. have been employed there and they, of course, have had to be shown how to do their work by the civilians. Many of these civilians at Weedon have sunk their life savings in buying their homes there. Some still have the mortgages to pay off and now for them the future does not look particularly rosy. I am told that a definite pledge was given that the representatives of the civilian employees would be consulted before any definite decision was made as to their future, and many regard that pledge as not having been kept. On 8th October of this year the Director of Warlike Stores informed those representatives that Weedon would either be closed altogether or would become a bulk stores depot. A bulk stores depot does not sound to me as if it would provide permanent employment for the number of people who have, until now and in the years before the war, been engaged in this depot and are concerned with small arms work.
The Director of Warlike Stores, I am informed, also said—and I regard this as most important—that Bicester would be run as a military depot, that no substantial body of civilians would bewanted, beyond a few from Weedon who would be accommodated in a Ministry of Supply hostel. I received a letter from the Financial Secretary on 9th October, the day

after the Director of Warlike Stores had made this statement to which I have referred. The Financial Secretary said that Weedon would have a very active role in the ordnance small arms organisation as a bulk stores depot and—what appears to me to be more important, I think—as a returned stores depot for small arms in this country. He said the transfers from Weedon would cause a surplus of only 70 clerks and that the work remaining at Weedon would occupy the rest. The satisfaction which that letter gave was somewhat discounted by the statement of the Director of Warlike Stores the day before that letter was despatched, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to confirm that the contents of that letter will be fully adhered to. If the present decision remain, I would ask the hon. Gentleman how long employment of the sort to which he refers in dealing with returned stores is likely to last? It does not sound to me as if it is very permanent.
One important question which I desire to raise is this: Will the Financial Secretary to the War Office confirm the statement made by the Director of Warlike Stores as to the employment at Bicester of soldiers and A.T.S.? Are we really going to employ hundreds, and, it may be, thousands of men and women in uniform in peacetime in doing work which, prior to the war and during the war, was excellently done by civilians? If that is the intention, it may, perhaps, explain why demobilisation in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps is not proceeding more quickly. It will, of course, mean that, if that is the intention, a vast military establishment with many people holding high rank, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the view is held pretty widely that there are two chief reasons for this concentration at Bicester. One is to cover up, in a peacetime cloud, the millions of pounds spent in wartime on this project which did not come into use. The second is the creation of a broad-based pyramid of military personnel so that a few at the top may hold high rank and enjoy the pay and emoluments attaching to it.
I hope the hon. Gentleman may be able to say that these suspicions are un-founded, but I assure him that they exist, and I mention them so that he may have an opportunity of dealing with them.
Some civilians are being asked to go from Weedon to Bicester. They have been asked to "volunteer." On 30th July, 30 civilians already selected were asked to go and were told that they were key men, although some were only temporary clerks and their average age was 54½years. Of course, that transfer, in peacetime, would mean separation from their homes and additional expense, because they were going to be required to live in. hostels, and if they shared a double room, to pay 30s. a week, or, for a single room, 35s. a week. In view of the expense, it is not surprising that there were only 11 volunteers, and they only volunteered after having been informed that, if they did not accept the offer, they would find themselves redundant or transferred to other depots. That is what, I understand, "volunteering "means in that connection.
On nth December, I asked the Secretary of State some Questions about this, and I do not think one answer was very frank. I asked if he would state the number of houses it was proposed to build at Bicester to accommodate civilians transferred from other depots, and his answer was as follows:
It is not within my province to build houses for civilian employees at depots, except for a few key personnel who must live on the premises. The civilian labour will be drawn as far as possible from neighbouring towns, but, if any extra local housing appears to be necessary when the permanent establishment is fixed, I shall bring the point to the notice of the civil authorities concerned." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1945; Vol. 417, c. 195.]
I am informed that plans have already been made by officers or officials in the War Office for the erection of 250 houses for civilians at or in the neighbourhood of Bicester. Indeed, one informant has put the figure very much higher than that, and I am informed that negotiations are already proceeding with the County Planning Authority as to the site on which these houses shall be placed and as to whether an addition shall be made to the town of Bicester or a separate town put up a mile or a mile and a half away. In the light of the fact, as I believe it to be, that these negotiations are now being carried on, and that plans for the erection of these houses are now in existence, I must say that I do not regard the answer of the Secretary of State to me

as being very full in nature, and I suspect that, perhaps, he may not have had full information on this point put at his disposal.
At this time, before houses are built for people intended to be transferred, or for people who have houses already, surely houses should be built for those who have not got accommodation? I ask the hon. Gentleman to go further into this matter and reconsider it. Recently we were told that one advantage with regard to the production of aluminium houses was the fact that it would keep those engaged in the aluminium industry in employment. Now, it would appear that the Government, in order to justify this expenditure at Bicester, which will provide a basis for high military ranks, are going, if not immediately, then in the future, to create unemployment in my division, and I cannot let that pass without the strongest protest.
I ask that Weedon should be retained as a small arms depot, with its experienced staff, all housed there, with its efficiency proved by its wartime prowess, and I can inform the hon. Gentleman that there is land at Weedon already in the possession of the War Department which could be used for any further extension of small arms accommodation if that was required. I would ask the hon. Gentleman to go into this matter very thoroughly and take every possible step to see that the Government's policy in this regard is not one which, instead of providing full employment, will, in fact, create unemployment.

O.C.T.U.'s (COMMANDING OFFICERS' VISITS)

2.24 p.m.

General Sir George Jeffreys (Peters-field): The matter to which I desire to call attention is one on which I asked a Question recently of the Secretary of State, namely, as to the existence of an Army Council Instruction forbidding visits by Colonels of regiments to officers' training units with a view to getting personal touch with candidates for commissions in their regiments. Before proceeding further, in view of the fact that there was some misunderstanding, I would like to make it clear to which officers I am referring. In some units, it is customary to refer to the officer commanding as "the Colonel." This is not strictly correct, as


the appropriate designation is "theCommanding Officer," and it is not the commanding officers to whom I am about to refer. It is to the Colonels of regiments in the strict sense of that term. Every regiment has at its head a Colonel, or, in the case of certain regiments and corps, there may be two or more Colonels-commandant, and paradoxically, as it may seem, these Colonels of regiments and Colonels-commandant, are,in fact, Generals, cither serving or retired. These Colonels of regiments have a number of responsibilities, as to one of which, in particular, I shall have something to say directly.
In answer to my Question on 4th December, the Secretary of State said:
Iam aware of the instruction referred to. The selection and posting to regiments of officer cadets is the responsibility of the War Office in the light of Army requirements as a whole, and cannot depend entirely on personal preferences for particular regiments, or on personal recommendations.
I then asked the Secretary of State whether he was aware of the existence of War Office Letter 26/General/5183, issued to all Colonels of regiments, in which the responsibilities of Colonels of regiments are laid down, the first of these being, and I quote from the Order:
The nomination of suitable candidates for commissions in the regiment.

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Bellenger): What is the date of that?

Sir G. Jeffreys: The date of the letter is 9th April, 1936. It has never been cancelled, and was issued to me, as Colonel of a regiment, this year. I then asked the Secretary of State how those instructions were to be carried out, in view of the Army Council Instruction to which I have referred.The Secretary of State replied—again I quote from Hansard:
I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman for directing my attention to this rule. I must say that it is no desire of mine that, these candidates should be segregated from visitors, but I must make it clear that the War Office have a responsibility in this matter which it cannot delegate to anyone, officers or anybody else." —(OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th December, 1945; vol. 416, c. 2096.)
I am still asking how this, the first of the responsibilities laid down in that War Office letter to Colonels of regiments, is to be fulfilled if the Colonels are to be prohibited from visiting officer cadet training

units and getting into personal touch with candidates, and potential candidates, for their regiments, and thus getting at first hand the opinion of the commanders of the cadet training units regarding them. This selection and posting of officers is a very important matter, and it is not by any means one which can be effectually dealt with by the War Office alone, for the War Office necessarily has to judge from reports and particulars on paper.
Here I would say that good conduct, education and diligence, important as these are, are not by themselves sufficient qualifications for an officer, for, in addition, character, personality and the power to command and lead others are of immense importance. These latter qualities cannot be fully gauged from paper reports. A good idea can, however, be formed by personal contact with cadets and with the commanders of cadet training units, and it is that personal contact which Colonels of regiments are anxious to get in order to fulfil the responsibility laid down by the War Office letter, and which contact it appears to be the desire of another branch of the War Office—" A "branch—to prevent them getting. In other words it appears that the right hand of the War Office is taking one line and the left hand of the War Office is taking another.
Another point I wish to make is this: From the point of view of regimental spirit and esprit de corps it is very desirable that as many candidates as possible should have a regimental or a county connection and association. The Colonel of a county regiment would most certainly pay great attention to this, and a candidate with such connections would, other things being equal, be more likely to be a success in a regiment than one who had not got them. Perhaps if I may quote an extreme example to illustrate, I think it will probably be agreed—certainly by Scottish Members—that a South country young man, however excellent he might be, would probably be less effective as an officer in a Scottish regiment than would be a Scotsman. To carry it a little further, I would say that if you drafted a young man from a county in, say, the Midlands to a South country regiment, that young man would be likely to be less effective as an officer there— assuming his qualities were approximately equal— than would be a young man who came from the county in question. One of the greatest efforts made


by Colonels of regiments is to get local county young men to serve in their county regiment. The only other thing near to that is a regimental connection. The principle is exactly the same. The local interest which someone would have who had some connection originally with either the regiment or the county from which it comes, is very valuable indeed and it is one of the points which colonels try to elicit when they interview, if they can interview, candidates for their regiments.
I sometimes wonder whether the real reason for the attitude of "A" Branch of the War Office in this matter is that they know the importance attached to it by the regiments. During this war, while sometimes paying lip service to the regimental system, they have, in practice, continually shown their antipathy to it by treating both officers and other ranks as mere units which can be drafted and posted anywhere regardless of the county or regiment to which they belong. That in my opinion is a mistaken and a deplorable policy. I fully admit that occasionally shortages render it necessary, but it is not a policy which should be adopted as the ordinary policy of posting, and that, I fear, is the case at present and it certainly has been in the past. It is because they believe in the regimental system, and because they wish in the words of the War Office letter which I have quoted—" to nominate suitable candidates," suitable in every way "for commissions in their regiments" that Colonels of regiments wish this Army Council Instruction to be rescinded.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will argue that it was because of war conditions that this Army Council Instruction was issued. That pretext no longer holds good. I do not think it was really necessary under war conditions, but the war is over happily, and that reason no longer holds good in any way. There is not the slightest difficulty in regular, arranged visits by Colonels of regiments to officer cadet training units, and I believe that commanding officers of those training units would welcome them, and it would make for the proper fulfilment of the long standing and traditional duties of Colonels of regiments if this Army Council Instruction were to be rescinded and freedom in that matter restored to Colonels of regiments, as I hope may be the case.

2.35 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Bellenger): We are learning from the evidence which is now emerging at Nuremberg and other places, that the German High Command had some apprehension about a war on two fronts, but today the War Office has been attacked on three fronts. Therefore, I enter this battle with some little trepidation, but I hope the War Office will emerge victorious from the battle as the British Army did in this war, and in the war which preceded that—to which, I think, the hon. and gallant Gentleman applied his mind mostly in the speech which he has just delivered.
If I may deal with the first attack which was presented by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Black pool (Brigadier Low) which concerned the retention of officers, as opposed to other ranks, beyond their release date for their groups as announced, I regret this, as does my hon. Friend. I believe that when a plan is made it should be adhered to as far as possible, but all operations during the war were always subject to unforeseen circumstances, and the unforeseen circumstance in this case is that not so many officers volunteered to defer their release as we expected. Therefore, the fact emerges that there is a great danger, the more we speed up release, that we shall be out of gear in the ratio between officers and other ranks. I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Black pool will understand that it is very necessary that we should keep a certain definite proportion between officers and other ranks if we are to run the Army most efficiently. As I listened to what he said, I had the impression— although he rather denied it— that his remarks were an echo of the recent censure Debate, when an attempt was made by his Leader, and other right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, to break the age and service release scheme, and that the Government will not do.

Brigadier Low: May I make this quite clear? I agree with the Government in their policy. On no account must we break the age and service principle as far as it affects the general parity between different theatres. My point was that there was no reason to apply it to only those officers who are taken out of the Bevin


scheme in any case, if the military necessity clause is applied to them by groups.

Mr. Bellenger: Perhaps I have misunderstood the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but if he wishes me to answer him on the plane as he has presented it, namely, the overall picture as it affects all theatres, then I do not see what substance his argument had when he mentioned that there were numbers of officers in this country who were doing nothing. I would first of all challenge that assertion. This country is what I may call the depot for reinforcing all theatres overseas.

Brigadier Low: Can I make that clear—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I hope hon. Members will not intervene if it can be avoided. We are much behind with our programme.

Mr. Bellenger: May I give a few figures? I will not bother the House with too many, but I have to do so to satisfy, if I can, the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the Army are not retarding the releasing of any groups of officers merely because they want to keep a large number of personnel in the Army. To ensure efficiency the run out should have been in the nature of 8 per cent. of officers to 92 per cent. of other ranks but, in fact, the composition of the groups bore little relation to that ratio. The groups are composed, especially the middle groups, up to 26 and 27, of other ranks in relation to officers out of all proportion to the figures I have just given, and in groups 1 to 10 the ratio was in fact 30 per cent. of officers to 70 percent. of other ranks, and even by group 22 the ratio is 11.3 per cent, of officers to 88.7 per cent, of other ranks. I think the House will see, therefore, that if we were to release officers and other ranks as their turn came, we should soon have a disparity between the officers and the other ranks which would lead to reduced efficiency in the Army.
There are certain theatres of war which are more affected than others, and in view of the large number of letters we have received at the War Office from hon. Members, and also from the general public, about the East and West African troops and their non-commissioned officers and officers, perhaps I might say a word about that? A large number of East and West African troops were mobilised for the war

effort and they were officered and N.C.Oed. by British personnel. The House will perhaps be surprised to know, as I was when I read the figures, that there are something in the order of 10,000 officers in those East and West African formations, with the result that, owing to the difficulty of demobilising those coloured troops, it was found impossible to release their white British officers and N.C.Os. I am afraid the result has been a feeling amongst those British N.C.Os. and officers that they have not been treated fairly in relation to other officers and N.C.Os. else where. However, we are in the process now of demobilising those coloured troops, and I hope that before long the situation in relation to these particular officers who are at present with West African and East African formations will soon be much better, and that they will take their turn for release in accordance with the programme and the announced policy of His Majesty's Government.
Now in relation to the specialists to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, it has always been understood in the release scheme that certain officers and other ranks coming into that would not be able to be released in their turn because of the very nature of their specialist work. We have tried to keep this as low as we possibly can because we do not want to defer more officers or other ranks merely because they happen to be specialists, but the fact remains that if we are to keep the Army in a state of efficiency in all theatres, we cannot release essential officers who are specialists— medical, professional, or trade specialists —and that has resulted in a certain number whose release has been deferred. That number is much smaller than many people think, and we are doing our best to replace these specialists as far as we possibly can.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked whether the delay in announcing the terms for officers was having any effect on this situation. From my own experience when I recently visited the B.A.O.R., I know that officers holding emergency commissions at the present time would like to know what terms can be expected for the Regular Army in the future, and we are doing our best to get those terms out. If it were only Army terms we were concerned with, the matter would be comparatively easy, although less easy than


in the case of other ranks, but we are endeavouring to get some uniformity between the three Services, and that accounts for the delay in announcing the terms for the officers of the post war Army. We hope that very soon after the House returns from the Christmas Recess we shall be able to announce those terms.
I think, in concluding this particular part of the subjects which have been raised, that all I need say is that we have done better than we thought we should do when Field Marshal Montgomery made his first announcement to the officers of B.A.O.R. In the recent announcement made with regard to Groups 22 and 23 for officers, we have accelerated their release, because, when it was originally announced, we thought that it would be necessary to "freeze," if I may use that term which is a military and an economic one, the officers in these two groups until after 10th February. We now find, and we have said this, that we shall be able to release them, starting on 10th January and 23rd January respectively.

Brigadier Low: In dealing with this question of deferment, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard that the word used in this Order was "extensively."

Mr. Bellenger: I am dealing with three subjects, and there are others to follow when I have resumed my seat. That is the reason why it is impossible for me today to deal more elaborately with the question that has been raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. If I had taken the length of time that the three previous speakers have done, then I am afraid I should be "deferring" the other Members who wish to raise matters on the Adjournment.
Now, may I turn to the remarks of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Manning-ham-Buller), who has raised a matter affecting his own constituency? Although this is a very laudable aspect of an hon. Members duties, I want if I can to give him, because it only affects his own constituency, some assurance, and I hope that he will find it more satisfactory than the hon. and gallant Member for North Blackpool has done in the remarks which I have just made, which do not seem entirely to satisfy him. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Daventry is con-

cerned with one of the ordnance depots in his constituency. He went into ratherancient history about the origins of that depot. I do not know whether he is aware, but it may be of interest to him to know that this ordnance depot originally started as a Royal Pavilion, it then became a prison, and eventually an ordnance depot. It isa very ancient building, and that is all the more reason for us not to look at this matter with ancient ideas. We have got to modernise our ideas.
That is the whole problem that is affecting the transition of industry from war to peace, and it applies also to matters in the military sphere. Weedon originally served a very useful purpose, but, as the result of the expansion of small arms and equipment of that nature, it was necessary during the war to build a larger depot, and that is the reason why Bicestercame into existence, with the result that Bicester, from the point of view of economy and efficient handling of these matters, is a much more modern depot than Weedon. If we were going to shut down Weedon altogether, then I agree that the hon. Member would have reason for his apprehension, but such is not the case. We intend to keep Weedon in existence, although its functions will be somewhat different from what they have been, but the result to civilian employees engaged a Weedon will not be so devastating as the hon. Gentleman led us to believe. As a matter of fact, the number of clerks in question will only be, I think, 46, and of that number, owing to the transference of some of the functions from Weedon to Bicester, 15 have volunteered to go to Bicester to serve there, and the other 31 civilians, who are surplus to Weedon's requirements, are being placed in other employment in association with the national service officer.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Gentleman will understand that there are not onlycivilian clerks employed at Weedon. There are a large number of civilians from the surrounding district, and Bicester did not come into function until July, 1944.

Mr. Bellenger: I am informed that it came into operation much earlier than that and althoughBicester may not have functioned so intensively for D-Day as the hon. Member might have wished, the fact


remains that it was in operation by D-Day, and the fact also remains that it will now operate in relation to the plans of the Army for ordnance depots in the future. Ido not think that he need have any apprehensions of a large amount of unemployment in relation to Weedon unless it is that Weedon, as all ordnance depots, will have to reduce considerably. As he truly said, the war has come to an end and, therefore, it is necessary that we should reduce the volume of work and employment at many of these depots. This is inevitable if we are going to turn over to much more productive enterprise. I hope that I have been able to assure the hon. Gentlemanthat, in the case of Weedon, the situation is not so bad as he has been informed. As we shall be using Weedon for bulk stores we shall be able to provide a large amount of work or, at least, a certain amount of work for civilian employees there. It is theintention of the War Office to employ as much civilian labour at these ordnance depots, not only Bicester or Weedon, as we possibly can; and it is not the intention of the War Office to create large commands at these depots in order to provide work for senior officers.
In reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Peters field(Sir G. Jeffreys), who referred to a letter dated 1936, I would say that the policy in that letter, which was a prewar policy, was altered by the Army Council Instruction of 1941.

Sir G. Jeffreys: The hon. Gentleman has taken no notice of the fact that I informed him, in answer to the hon. Gentleman who rose when I was speaking, that the letter was still being issued to the Colonels of regiments. It was in fact issued to myself as Colonel of a regiment this year.

Mr. Bellenger: It looks as though I must apologise for a mistake having been made in sending out these letters. The policy is laid down in the Army Council Instruction of 1941, and it is not the intention of the War Office to follow a policy that might have been good in the time of the Crimea War or the Boer War.

Colonel Lancaster: That policy was in force until 1944. It is no good going back to 1941, because at that time it was not in force.

Mr. Bellenger: I cannot speak with authority as to what happened before I came to the War Office, but in speaking about the policy which we are going to follow, both my right hon. Friend and I are of the opinion, supported by our military advisers, that the old policy of Colonels commandant, and Colonels of regiments going to the cadet schools and creaming off, as they did, the best of the cadets at the schools for their regiments, cannot apply to the Army of the future.

Sir G. Jeffreys: That is not the case.

Mr. Bellenger: There is not the slightest doubt, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows it, that certain regiments, more popular than others, had the choice of officers, and indeed that was the whole purpose of some of these Colonels commandant, who certainly were very much retired, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, going to these cadet schools, so that they could pick out the individuals they wanted for their own particular regiments. May I say that there is a good deal to be said for the old county regimental tradition, but the fact remains that in future, it is not going to be possible to recruit on a county basis. [Hon. Members: "Why not"] Not only in this war but in the Great War, it was not possible to reinforce these regiments by county personnel and it was therefore necessary for example to dilute famous Scottish regiments with those who came from the South.

Sir G. Jeffreys: May I. interrupt again? The hon. Gentleman speaks about the last war, and perhaps he will say that I am very much out of date but I know a bit more about the last war than he does, and I know a good deal about these reinforcements. In the last war reinforcement from other regiments was not done as a policy. In this war it has been done as a policy.

Mr. Bellenger: It has been doneas a policy as the result of the experience of the Great War which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has talked about. It was done as a specific policy and will be followed as such. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says that he knows more about these subjectsthan I do, but perhaps I am also a little ancient, like the hon. and gallant Member for Peters field. I served in the Great War as he did, and saw it from the other end of the scale. He saw it from


the general officer's end, and I, from the other rank's end. This system does not prevail in the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force, where they have one general service tradition.
Although I am not going to say that preference will not be given to some of those who indicate a preference for certain regiments, as all cadets can do at the present time at the O.C.T.Us. by indicating their first, second and third choices, nevertheless, the overriding principle in relation to this matter is the good of the Service itself. What is necessary for the Service in the case of officers will be done, and although an opportunity will be given to cadets to specify their choice of different regiments we must reserve to ourselves at the War Office the right to post officers to those regiments which we think are best in the interests of the Service. What was done in the past resulted, especially in the Great War to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was referring, in some regiments having a surplus of officers while other regiments, not so popular, were very short of officers. As long as we have this variation in regiments of which the Army is composed, we must provide the officers to fill up the vacancies in all of these regiments.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On what basis does the hon. Gentleman imagine that the Territorial Army can be maintained in the future if he now proposes to do away with the territorial method of recruitment?

Mr. Bellenger: I am not dealing with the Territorial Army at the moment. It has not yet been definitely settled what is to be the basis of the Regular Army and auxiliary forces in the future. I hope that many of the distinctive features of the Territorial force will be retained, but I am not prepared to say at this moment that they will be retained in precisely the same form as theywere before this war. The hon. and gallant Member for Peters-field has not raised that issue. He has raised the issue of the Regular Army.

Sir G. Jeffreys: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I raised the issue of Colonels of regiments. A Colonel of a regiment is the Colonel of the whole regiment, including Territorial battalions.

Mr. Bellenger: I misunderstood the hon. and gallant Member. I thought he was

referring to the Regular Forces, but if he is also including the Territorial Army then the answerI have just given to the Noble Lord stands. We do not know precisely what the basis of the auxiliary forces will be in the future. Many consultations are going on at the present time. I would urge the House to consider this matter in its widest aspect. Before the war which has just ended I listened in this House to a fight by those who maintained that the Scots Greys should keep their horses, at a time when we were trying to mechanise the Army. I would appeal to hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House tomodernise their minds, and not be obsessed by something which may have been good 50 years ago, but which no longer holds good.

BORSTAL INMATE'S DEATH

3.3 p.m.

Mr. Thurtle: I would like to thank you, Sir, for giving me the opportunity of raising this case, which I am bound to bring to the attention of the House. It is that of a constituent of mine, Arthur Clatworthy, a Borstal boy, aged 20, who died recently as a result, I suspect, of brutal treatment in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. My case is necessarily based largely upon hearsay evidence. Nobody sees what goes on inside prison walls, except the officials who are there, and when an incident arises inside an institution of this kind there is hardly ever a conflict of testimony between the officials concerned. They always speak with one voice and. that is probably not very surprising, but it certainly does not lend itself to getting at the truth.
Let me come to my story. According to Clatworthy's mother, she received on 26th September notification fromthe Borstal Institution at Portland that her son was seriously ill with a serious form of anaemia, and had been transferred to Weymouth Hospital. This was the first intimation she had had that there was anything wrong with her usually healthy son. Moreover, she was surprised by the nature of the complaint, since her son had always been a particularly healthy specimen, and so far as his blood is concerned, he had been a blood donor to hospitals. As soon as Mrs. Clatworthy had this news she visited her son,and found him so changed that she hardly recognised him. She said


to him, "How did you get like this, son?" The son told her that while he was at Wormwood Scrubs there was a warder named Evans who took a dislike to him and was always giving him a punch whenever opportunity offered.
One day he punched him in his cell, and the exasperated lad hit back. The warder went out, locked the door, and came back with four or five other warders. Then the lad was punched, thrown to the ground, kicked and hit until the cell floor was a mass of blood. He was then lifted up, his hands were handcuffed behind his back, he was taken out of his cell, pushed down some steps, and given some further blows. It appears that some five or six weeks after this Clatworthy was transferred to the Borstal Institution at Portland, and when his mother called at Wormwood Scrubs to visit him in the usual way she was told that she could not see him, but would have to get special permission. It was not until 25th September that the medical officer at Portland wrote and told her that her son was in hospital seriously ill. Then, as I have explained, she went at once to him and heard his story, although he had been in hospital in the Portland institution for two periods of some weeks before he went to Weymouth.
I want to make an observation or two about the way in which the machinery for making complaints operated in this case. After the mother came back from her visit to her son, she wrote to the Governor of Wormwood Scrubs, telling him what she had heard and asking for an interview. The Governor wrote back a courteous reply, saying he could not see her himself, but that the Deputy Governor would be pleased to see her any day she called. Armed with this letter she went to the prison. This is how she was treated: The officers at the gate seemed to consider it a joke that a poor woman should want to see the Deputy Governor. They pressed her to say why she wanted to see him but she refused. After some time they went into an adjoining room and telephoned. The mother did not hear what was said, but the man who was telephoning laughed loudly and appeared to be joking with someone.
Finally, after some time the House Master of the boys' prison, not the Deputy Governor, came out and asked her what she wanted. She told him that she had

come to complain of her son's treatment, whereupon he said: "If you have any complaint to make you should apply to the Prison Commissioners." A few days later she received a letter from the Deputy Governor repeating this advice, and giving the address of the Prison Commissioners. She wrote and obtained an appointment to see a Prison Commissioner. She kept the appointment at the appointed time. She was kept waiting for two hours. Then she saw a Prison Commissioner. Shetold this gentleman that she had come to complain of the way in which her son had been beaten. He said, "But your son if suffering from anaemia." The mother replied that she knew that, but that it was all due to the knocking about and the loss of blood he had suffered. The reply of the Prison Commissioner was, "Oh, well, he may have had a hiding, and it may be that he was powerful and had to be restrained." The mother is positive that he used those words.
I wish to make two comments on these matters. First,when a poor woman goes to a prison with a letter of appointment to see the Deputy Governor, it is a shocking thing that prison officers should bully her and jeer at her and make jokes about her. My other comment is that if a Prison Commissioner says of a boy, "Oh, well, he may have had a hiding," it is not unreasonable to suspect that something of a more serious character has taken place. in any case, hidings of this sort ought not to be part of our prison system. So far as restraint is concerned, five or six grown men in a cell could easily restrain an excited boy of 20, even if he were a strong boy, without the necessity of giving him a hiding and in the process, making the cell floor a mass of blood.
After this interview with the Prison Commissioner the mother came to see me, and on 10th November I wrote to the Home Secretary. I asked him to inquire into the case as the lad was seriously ill. I had an acknowledgment saying that inquiries were being made. When, more than three weeks later, the mother cameto see me again, alarmed that her son was dying, I sent a reminder to the Home Secretary, and drew his attention to the fact that the boy seemed to be on the point of death. This was on 3rd December. By the time I got the Home Secretary's reply to this letter,


which he wrote on the 1oth, the lad was dead, having died on the 6th. This lad is said to have died from pernicious anaemia. I am no medical man— I am just a layman— but I understand from authorities that this is a complaint which affects mainly middle-aged and elderly people; it is abnormal in the very young. And the onset of the disease is very gradual. In exceptional cases the disease attacks young people after, and I am now quoting Black's Medical Dictionary:
Severe loss of blood, such as that following childbirth or prolonged loss of blood from haemorrhoids.
It is obvious that if there has been severe loss of blood through a beating-up in prison of a young person there is the necessary condition to bring on this disease. In reply to a question of mine yesterday the Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs told me that the special form of anaemia from which the lad had died was agranulocytosis. But I find on reference to medical authorities that this is not really a special form of anaemia at all; it is a condition brought on by pernicious anaemia.
When I wrote to the Home Secretary on 10th November, and asked him to inquire into the allegations, and received a reply saying that inquiries were being made, I naturally assumed that this was in fact the case. But from an answer I got yesterday from the Under-Secretary, I find that nothing at all was happening. When the mother complained to the Prison Commissioners early in October the Home Office called for a report from the prisonauthorities. This report duly came in and apparently completely satisfied my right hon. Friend that there was nothing at all in the allegations, and no further action was taken. Therefore the reply to my letter of 1oth November saying that inquiries were being made was in fact pure form, and nothing more. Indeed, when I spoke to the Home Secretary two or three days before the lad died, it was quite obvious to me that he knew nothing whatever about the case.
There is implicit in the story I have told the House a charge of sadistic violence on the part of prison officials resulting in the death of this unfortunate lad, a constituent of mine. I submit that this is a serious charge, and the Home

Secretary will surely not wish prison officials to lie under it. I quite understand that; it is a perfectly proper attitude and if he takes that attitude it does him credit. But he has a simple remedy. Let him have an inquiry take place, and let it be an inquiry, not by the prison officials themselves, but an inquiry with an independent chairman and an independent medical assessor. It need not be in public. I do not ask for it to be in public; it can be a private inquiry so long as these independent members are present at it. As a matter of fact the onus rests on theHome Office and on the prison authorities, in view of the facts I have stated, to prove beyond a shadow of doubt, if they can prove it, that there was no connection between this lad's death and the treatment he received at Wormwood Scrubs. But if it is not true there is nothing to hide. If the Minister is confident that the version of the facts given by prison officials is a sound one, why should he hesitate about having an inquiry, even if it only concerns the life of a poor Borstal boy? I say it should be a point of honour to spare no trouble to get at the truth in a matter of this kind, and I ask the Home Secretary to see to it that this inquiry that I suggest takes place.

3.15 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I should like to open my remarks by expressing my sympathy with the parents of this lad in his death. Some of the matters my hon. Friend has raised in the course of his speech are not matters of which he has given any notice, and, therefore, he will not expect me to beable to reply in detail to that part of his remarks. Those are the statements he made in regard to Mrs. Clatworthy's reception at Wormwood Scrubs prison when she called there—this is the first time I have heard there was any complaint about that—and the allegations of discourteous treatment she received during her visit. Apart from what I say on other matters, I will certainly make immediate inquiries into the truth of those allegations, for it is my desire that any person calling at one of His Majesty's prisons on legitimate business should receive the courteous treatment the subject has the right to expect from any public official. But inasmuch as I have had no notice of this point being raised, that must not be taken as an admission at thisstage


that the treatment that hasbeen mentioned was in fact accorded.
I hope the House will allow me to deal with the version of the facts as they have been reported to me. I do not think my hon. Friend was quite fair to me when he said that when hecasually mentioned this matter to me in one of the corridors of the House it was obvious I knew nothing about it. He was referring to a letter that had been written to me nearly a month before that date, and I have a very large number of letters and a very large number of individual cases brought to my notice. I think he was coming out of the tea room, and I was going into it, and it cannot be expected that a mere statement that he wanted to say something to me about Clatworthy should immediately ring a bell in my mind and connect my thoughts with the details of a particular case. I apologise to him that I was not able, in those circumstances, to deal with the subject as readily as he might have expected.

Mr. Thurtle: If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I think he is making a valid point but, as a matter of fact, I did write the letter to him and drew his attention to the fact that the lad was very seriously ill, and I thought that would remain in his mind.

Mr. Ede: May I say that that particular type of letter is not an infrequent one for me to receive?
Arthur Alfred Clatworthy, who was 19, was sentenced at the West Kent Assizes on 2nd March last to three years' Borstal detention for offences of office-breaking and shop-breaking and larceny. He was sent to the boysprison at Wormwood Scrubs, pending his allocation to a Borstal Institution. On 27th March he was reported for misconduct at exercise, and ordered to his cell, pending adjudication. During the afternoon of the same day, he was again reported for misconduct and was locked up in his cell. Apparently, he was excited and angry following this second incident, and he proceeded to relieve his feelings by smashing up the contents of his cell and the cell windows. As soon as his duties allowed, the principal officer on duty—not the officer who had reported Clatworthy—visited the cell and observed Clatworthy, brandishing the leg of a chair and bleeding profusely from his hand, which he had apparently cut

on the glass of the window. The officer reasoned with him, but to no purpose, and, as Clatworthy threatened violence to anyone entering, called two other officers to his assistance to restrain him. These officers, protected by a mattress, entered the cell, bore Clatworthy to the ground and put handcuffs on his wrists, to prevent him doing any further damage to himself or others. He was taken at once to the hospital, where he was treated for his injury,which is reported to me as being self-inflicted. This injury was to his right little finger. Three stitches were inserted and the cut was dressed and arrangements made for daily dressings to be carried out.
I should point out here, that subsequent inquiries have established that no complaint was made by Clatworthy to the medical officer thathe had been brutally handled by the prison officers, nor did the medical officer find any signs that he was so handled. The dressings of the finger were attended to subsequently by another doctor, who saw him for other medical complaints, such as a sore throat, and Clatworthy made no complaint at all on any of these occasions about his treatment nor can I find that at any time while at Wormwood Scrubbs did he complain to the medical officer, or any other prison officer, of his treatment.
After the wound had been dressed he was taken to a strong cell, and in due course he appeared before the Governor, who remitted his case to the visiting committee On 6th April the visiting committee awarded him nine days' cellular confinement, nine days' No. 1 diet, 21 days' No. 2 diet and deprivation of association for 21 days. I should again point out that he made no complaint cither to the Governor or to the visiting committee, and that he was visited daily during the period of his punishment and made no complaint at anytime. On 17th May he was transferred to Portland Borstal Institution. In accordance with the usual practice, he was medically examined, both before leaving Wormwood Scrubs and on reception at Portland, and the respective medical officers found him in good health. He remained in good health until 13th July when he was admitted to hospital with a headache and temperature. He was treated with M. & B. and was discharged from hospital on 23rd July. On 27th August, he was again admitted


to hospital with a temperature and general aching, and he also had some septic sores, a skin complaint from which some other inmates of the institution also suffered at that time. He was again treated with M. and B. and the condition improved until 12th September, when it began to deteriorate. A blood count was taken on 16th September, and showed a condition resembling pernicious anaemia, for which he was given liver extract; but, as he made little response, it was decided to transfer him to Weymouth Hospital for further treatment, and this was done on 24th September.
It was not until 22nd October that any suggestion was made that Clatworthy had been illtreated the previous March. On that day Mrs. Clatworthy saw the housemaster at the Borstal Institution, and told him she had seen her son at Weymouth Hospital, and he had said something which greatly distressed her about being taken into a cell by a number of officers and being kicked. A statement was taken from Clatworthy at the hospital, the effect of which was that at the timeof the incident at Wormwood Scrubs, the previous March, six officers had rushed into his cell and overborne him, and thrown him on the floor and punched and kicked him. In view of this statement, the Governor of Wormwood Scrubs instituted the most careful inquiries. Records were examined, and information obtained from all the officers concerned. As a result of his inquiries, he was quite satisfied that only the three officers mentioned— not six — were involved, and that no more force than wasreasonably necessary to restrain Clatworthy and take him to hospital had been used. Unfortunately, in spite of every care and treatment at the hospital at Weymouth, including blood transfusions, Clatworthy's condition did not improve, and he died on 6th December. The medical name for the condition is, I understand, agranulocytosis, a severe form of anaemia. With regard to this particular form of anaemia, I am as much a layman in this matter as my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), but I am informed that it is a severe form of anaemia which sometimes occurs after treatment with M. and B.
I have given the House the facts of the case as they have been reported to me, on the points which were raised in my hon. Friend's original Question. I

would like to assure him and the House that I regard the custody of these people, who are committed to prison and to Borstal institutions, as one of the most responsible duties placed on me by the House, and I am exceedingly anxious that that duty should be discharged by those responsible to me with due humanity towards the people committed to my charge, for,after all, I am ultimately responsible. There have been, as the House knows, some difficulties at Wormwood Scrubs and at some of the other places that have been temporarily over-crowded owing to the difficulties with regard to Borstal institutions which have formed the subject of Question and answer in this House. I propose, in the light of the further statement that has been made by my hon. Friend today, to give further consideration to this case. I will undertake to the House that I, personally, will see the officers at Wormwood Scrubs who were involved in this particular incident— both the subordinate officers and the senior officers who are responsible for the discipline of the place— and I hope the House will allow me to leave it at that stage for the moment. If, as a result of these personal inquiries of mine—and I do not wish to push my inquiries on to anyone else—I think the inquiry for which my hon. Friend has asked should be held, I will not shrink from holding it.

Captain Blackburn: Will it be a public inquiry?

Mr. Ede: That again is a matter which should be left to my discretion for, asI had to say in answer to a Question today, it is sometimes in the interests of some of the parties other than the prison officers concerned that these particular inquiries should not be held in public, but I will assure the House that I desire to see that in the prisons and Borstal institutions in this very difficult time, when every prison is understaffed, and when all sorts of additional difficulties beyond the normal have to be faced by prison officers, the highest possible standard shall be maintained, but, at the same time, I must protect my officers, if, in fact, they are in danger of assault or injury in the course of their duty. I thank my hon. Friend for having brought the matter forward. I regret that he did not give me notice of the further issues that he intended to raise,


and I hope he will feel that I have gone as far as it is possible for me to go in meeting him.

Dr. Haden Guest: May I ask my right hon. Friend a question on this matter from the medical aspect? The illness from which this young man eventually died was connected with what is called agranulocytosis— ashe correctly described it, a rare form of anaemia. I would like to deal with this aspect of the matter because I think that it is on the medical side that a solution will be found. I would like to know whether, in making the inquiry, the question can be raised as to whether the attack of violence to which this man gave vent on the occasion related by the Home Secretary was the cause of his illness orthe result of a pre-existing medical condition; and what was, in fact, the exact nature of the misconduct at exercise which led to his being sentenced, because agranulocytosis is a condition of the blood which may lead to death in a few days and sometime is very difficult to diagnose. The key to it may be this curious and rather obscure condition of the blood.

Mr. Ede: I am sure the House will sympathise with me in having to answer a technical question of that kind from a doctor. It appears to me that he had far better be an expert witness at the inquiry than put these questions to one in the House. This is the point, as I am advised. The violence occurred in March. There was no sign of this particular disease until some months afterwards, and my medical advisers, in the light of the information before them, say there is no connection between what happened in March and the illness that occurred later in the year.

CIVIL SERVICE (CONTROL OF EMPLOYMENT) ORDER

3.33 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: I do not wish to deflect the House from the subject it has been discussing, but it has been arranged that I should raise another matter of a different kind, affecting some 750,000 public servants in Britain. The House will remember that early in the war we adopted what has been generally called the Essential Work Order, the effect of which has been to forbid any person employed on essential work to leave his

occupation, except with the consent of the National Service officer of the Ministry of Labour. Conversely, employers were prohibited from dismissing their workmen except in cases where a similar consent was given by the National Service officer of the Ministry of Labour. The purpose of the Order was to prevent something happening which did happen in the last war. That was the enticing, of workmen away from one enterprise to another, by the offer of better conditions and higher wages, to the disruption of the industrial war effort at that time. It was desired to prevent a repetition of that sort of thing. That was thepurpose of the Essential Work Order. May I emphasise that it was not the purpose of the Essential Work Order to establish slavery in Britain?
Throughout the war the Essential Work Order has not been applied to the public servants of this country. Civil servants have not had the protection against dismissal which the Essential Work Order gave. Nor have they been debarred from leaving their employment, except in fact. Forif they left they were liable to redirection by the Minister of Labour who would probably direct them back to their old department. Sothat they have had no benefit from the Essential Work Order. But after the war had come to an end, a new Order, called the Civil Service (Control of Employment) Order, 1945, was put into effect, which has theeffect of imposing upon public servants in Britain the negative aspect of the Essential Work Order. That is to say, it makes it impossible for them to leave their occupations, whether they are permanent or temporary, except with the consent of the National Service officer of the Ministry of Labour.
I should like to make it plain that for permanent civil servants this matter has mainly an academic interest. They spend their lives in the public service, they do not normally resign, and it is no great hardship to them to be told that they must not, because they do not want to, any way. This Order mainly affects the very large number of temporary civil servants now serving in Government Departments. I want to emphasise that for the overwhelming majority of these thousands of temporary staffs there is no prospect whatever of permanent employment in the public service. The total provision


made in the White Paper, which was approved by this House of Commons in the last Parliament, was for the admission of about 2,000 temporary civil servants to permanent jobs. The remainder of the scores of thousands involved can have no hope of permanent employment in the public service. They must look to outside industry and commerce for their future livelihood. It seems tome that the State, when it is dealing with some scores of thousands of people whom it has told it cannot give permanent employment in the Civil Service, ought not to make it difficult for them to find their livelihood outside. If the State were saying, "We will give you permanent employment, you have no cause to worry about your future life," that might be all right, but when the State takes precisely the opposite view, it ought not to make it difficult for those men to leave.
It may be said that they have a right of appeal, and it is true they can appeal to this National Service officer. But the National Service officer himself is a civil servant, and when a Government Department appeals to a civil servant as judge, it is idle to pretend that the civil servant occupies a position of complete independence. Theoretically he does, but it is an extraordinarily difficult thing for an individual National Service officer to put himself in opposition to the Government Department which is refusing a man permissionto leave, and many applications to be allowed to leave are turned down. Even when the application is not turned down, it frequently happens that a long period of delay occurs before the case can be heard. I conducted three of these cases the other day, cases of prison officers in Holloway, and it was a matter of some weeks between the application being made to be allowed to go, and the hearing of that case by the appropriate Ministry of Labour tribunal. I need not tell Members of this House that the prospect of getting a job depends very often upon a person being able to go to it quickly. Employers will not sit back and wait when they want to get their works going again. If they offer a job to a man, and he can only say, '' I cannot tell you now whether I can take it, and it will be weeks before I can let you know," his prospects of getting the job are very low indeed.
I should also like to tell the House that, by agreement between the Civil Service trade unions and the Government, we have adopted a rule governing the order of discharge of temporary employees in the public service. That rule is, "Last in, first out." Everybody will at once see that that is a reasonable rule to adopt, but the House will also see straight away that it means there are somethousands of men who will have to get out within a very short period of time, and that it may be a matter of the utmost urgency to them to make arrangements for then future life, which they cannot do while this Control of Employment Order remains in force.
My next point is that the pay of these men is abominably low. A temporary clerk in London gets £ 3 14s. a week, with a war bonus currently in the neighbourhood of 23s. a week. In other words, he is getting less than £ 5 a week— if working in London; in the provinces the figures are correspondingly lower. It is true that the bonus element in that remuneration is under consideration, and may be slightly increased before long. But the House will agree that this is a very low rate of payfor such people, and I submit that it is really monstrous to use an instrument like the Civil Service (Control of Employment) Order to compel people to remain in sweated labour. That is a monstrous abuse of the original purpose of the Essential Work Order, which ought not to be applied to public servants.
There is a further point, of great importance to the House. There has to be an immense reduction of staff in the public service in the period that lies ahead. Before the war public servants of the nonindustrial grades numbered 330,000. Today they number well over 700,000. There was a vast recruitment of temporary staff because of war conditions, and those vast establishments ought, in the public interest, to be reduced as rapidly as possible, having regardto the requirements of the public service. I warn the House that there is no more sure way of preventing the reduction of those largely-inflated staffs than to allow this Control of Employment Order to remain in existence. It will operate to inhibit, to alarge extent, the natural processes of reduction that ought to take place as the commitments and obligations of the war period die down now that the war is over.
I would next remind the House that the longer we keep temporary staff unnecessarily the greater is the danger that we shall re-create in the public service, after this war, exactly the same problem that we created after the war of 1914-18. The problem created then will be remembered by older Members of the House. We kept on the temporary staffs month after month and year after year until, in fact, they had established a moral claim to permanent employment in the public service. When that point was reached we were compelled to grant establishment on a wholesale scale, and we had to subordinatethe long-term interests of efficiency in the public service to the necessity of meeting a problem which, if we had been wiser, would never have been allowed to grow. I submit that we ought not to repeat after this war the errors we made after the last war, with the warning of the last war now available to us.
The next point is that slave labour is always bad. You cannot get good hearty work from men whom you compel unwillingly to stay on the job. I notice that there is an absence of cheers from the Government side of the House.

Miss Jennie Lee: The hon. Member took us by surprise. We have not heard that one before.

Mr. Brown: If hon. Members have heard it before it appears to have left some uneasy consciences behind, because there ought to have been a spontaneous cheer at the assertion by me that slave labour is bad labour. There was an ominous silence, and I hope that does not mean that Members opposite are beginning to compound with the idea of slavery. For if they are, it will be necessary for meto go into sharp, aggressive, determined, hostile and vehement opposition. Slave labour is bad labour. If you compel men to stay on in a public Department when they want to be away, you will not get the work of that Department properly done, and when youkeep them there on wages which are an outrage, and which ought long since to have been put on a proper basis, I submit that the offence is double what it would have been if the conditions had been reasonable. I urge, therefore, that if the Government wantto retain large

numbers of temporary staff in the temporary service, because they argue that if they go now the work of public Departments will be impeded, they have a clear way out. Let them give such conditions in the public service as will induce men and women to remain. Do not let us use this weapon of the Essential Work Order to keep unwilling men and women in the Civil Service, who have to think about their future life and who would leave tomorrow if they were free. That would be a monstrous thing for any Government to do, and doubly so for a Labour Government to do.
I hope I have not been unduly hostile to the Financial Secretary in what I have said. He knows very well that I am not motivated by any feelings of hostility towards him, but I hope he is coming up to scratch today. For he is getting a bad reputation in the public service. I have raised a number of Civil Service issues in this Parliament, and, so far, I have had satisfaction on none. I asked for a Debate on the pay of the administrative staffs, on which we had a White Paper, but it was turned down. I asked for a Debate on the scientific civil servants to which a Labour Government, above all—which is now going into the field of industry— should pay special regard. That request was turned down. In the last Parliament I had Motions on the Paper dealing with the counting of war service towards pensions, and the age-barred officers. I have asked my hon. Friend to meet those cases, but so far he has not done so. When I suggested, as a way out of the difficulty, that the Government might appoint a Select Committee, to enable these issues to be considered upstairs in privacy and quietness, and thus to avoid thrusting on me the painful necessity of coming into conflict with them onCivil Service issues, that suggestion was turned down by the officials inside the Treasury. Now you cannot have office without responsibility, and it is part of the responsibility of office to take decisions. When a Minister is convinced that his Treasuryofficials, or whatever the Department may be, are not dealing adequately and justly with a particular issue, it is for him to decide, and to tell his Department that his decisions must be carried out. A Minister who does not do that is not fit for the responsibility of office.
It is important that a Minister should not fail on issues affecting hundreds of thousands of public servants in Britain who are entitled to his protection. I hope the hon. Gentleman will announce that he intends to make conditions in the public service such that they can attract the service of willing-hearted volunteers, who will do the work because they want to, and because they are reasonably paid, and that he will cease to rely on the mechanism of an Order compelling men andwomen to remain where they are, whether they want to or not, because that in the easiest and most facile way out of the immediate difficulty. I ask him, therefore, to withdraw this Essential Work Order which, I would remind the House, was imposed on the Civil Service trade unions without their being consulted. That has not been my hon. Friend's responsibility; it was done by another Government.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): That is very kind of the hon. Gentleman indeed.

Mr. Brown: If I have to be severe, I want also to be just. But if it was the responsibility of another Government, it is the responsibility of this administration to determine whether that Order shall apply any longer, and, as I have said, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to announce today that he intends to withdraw it.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. John Edwards: Before the Financial Secretary replies, I would venture to detain the House for a minute or so because I have taken part in the negotiations on this and related matters right from the beginning of the war until the issuing of the Civil Servants (Control of Employment) Order earlier this year. After very long negotiations, in February, 1944, the staff and official side of the National Whitley Council came to anagreement on a quite reasonable Essential Work Order for temporary civil servants. This was not a blanket order, but one which would have permitted some controls to be exercised, department by department, after proper consultation. This agreement was dropped in August, 1944, by the Treasury and everyone then assumed — and had every right to assume— that it was not the intention of the Government to impose controls in the

Civil Service apart from the general control under Defence Regulation 58A. It was in May of this year that the order was introduced freezing all civil servants.
In that connection I want to impress upon hon. Members that the words, "civil servants," for this purpose, not only cover the clerical people for whom the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) very specially speaks, but covers, for example, something like 300,000 people in the Post Office — postmen, sorting clerks and related grades, and the 50,000 telephone men for whom I have a special responsibility. While I subscribe in general to what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby has put forward, I do not assent to his view that this is a matter of academic interest only to permanent civil servants. Some of the men I represent — the skilled telephone men— are on a long scale of pay which has a maximum in London of 75s. a week (basic). It is not a matter of academic interest to these men whether they are to be free or not to seek alternative employment outside. I suggest to the Financial Secretary first that equality of treatment should be given to those employed by the Crown and that the relaxations in labour controls announced on 13th December by the Minister of Labour ought to be applied to them at once by revision of the Civil Service (Control of - Employment) Order. Secondly, there is really no case for a blanket order freezing all civil servants. If there is need for control at all it should be applied Department by Department and after proper consultation with the staff associations concerned.
People in the Civil Service, high and low, are trying to get out because they either want security of the kind described by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby or because they want better pay. I agree with him entirely that the State should now rely on the inducements of decent wages, security and better conditions of service rather than attempt to continue to control, civil servants under this order.

3.54 p.m.

Lieut.-ColonelLipton (Brixton): May I put a question to the Financial Secretary, in the hope that he may find it possible to deal with a particular class of civil servant, to whom reference was not made by the hon. Gentleman the


Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown)? They are the temporary shorthand typists, many of whom were directed against their will into Government service and who never wanted to work for the Government. Many of them want to get out at the earliest possible moment and if the principle of "last in, first out" is going to apply, it will impose on them an additional hardship. These temporary shorthand typists, many of whom have been in the Service for some three years or more, are anxious to know when they can get out. Everybody else has been told, but they want to know. Perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to deal with this particular class of civil servant in his reply.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I want to deal adequately with the points raised by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), but as I realise that many other hon. Members are waiting to speak on the Adjournment I do not want to take too long. The hon. Member said that I, personally, had failed him four times. He gave four instances. Two of them referred to something he had done or said in the last Parliament, andthey were beyond my control. Two of them referred to the fact that time has not been found for Debates on two matters. I need only mention, for the hon. Member knows it very well, that the time of this House is not, unfortunately, under my control. The hon. Member has made this matter one of great interest to himself. On more than one occasion he has raised it. Towards the end of the last Parliament he put down a Motion to annul this Order. The Motion should have come up at some date earlier this Session,but unfortunately for him he ran out of time. It might very well be that that lesson will be of use to him when he comes to correct his book on Procedure, when it begins to run, as I am sure it will, into its second edition.

Mr. W. J. Brown: That is pretty rough, when I delayed the matter at the request of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I asked the hon. Member if that was the case, and I was assured — and I was very glad to hear it— that I was not responsible. The hon. Member must be ready to take as well as to give. The Control of Movement (Civil Service) Order with which we are now dealing was brought into operation, as the hon. Mem-

ber correctly said, last May. Its object was made quite clear by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer on 15th May last; he said that the Order was being proposed by the Government,
 for the better regulation of the employment of civil servants both temporary and permanent during the period, upon which we have already entered, when reductions of staffs should be possible in many Departments but when on the other hand an uncontrolled and sudden loss of staff might gravely prejudice the performance of essential services.
A little further on in the same statement the same right hon. Gentleman said:
 A further important point is that it would not be right for persons employed in the Government Service to be completely free to leave essential work, and to take up other work, while persons in the Fighting Services or in scheduled civilian undertakings arestill tied." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1945; Vol. 410, c. 2275 and 2276.]
That is the real reason why I am unable to hold out very much hope this afternoon to the hon. Member that the Order will be annulled at a very early date. Without some such measure of protection as the Order gives it would be impossible, in the circumstances now prevailing, to keep a sufficient staff for the needs of the various Departments, having regard to the work which they have to undertake. This Order cannot be takenin isolation, but must be viewed as part of the general complex machinery relating to labour control. Defence Regulation 58A is not sufficient for meeting difficulties which might arise. We have the Control of Engagement Order and the Essential Work Orders, a very large number of them, which apply so extensively to industrial staffs all over the country. The Order now under review is, in a sense, an Essential Work Order, in that it applies to the Civil Service non-manual grades the same type of limitationand advantage which is applied to industrial workers. There are, or there were until recently, about 8,000,000 people subject to Essential Work Orders, and during the war there was a consensus of opinion that, although we all regretted that these controlshad to be instituted, nevertheless they were essential if the war was to be fought to a successful conclusion.
It is true, as hon. Members behind me and as indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby said, that the history of this matter goes back to 1943, when consultations took place between the


National Whitley Councils, staff side, and the Civil Service Commission, as to what might be done to ensure that temporary civil servants should not leave the Service at the crucial moment and go into other occupations where the pay or prospects were better. It was agreed at that time between the two sides that certain Departments should be allowed to have the advantage of what might be called Essential Work Orders, that is that certain designated Departmentsand the people who worked in them should be put into a category of their own, and that people who were in other Departments should be free to come and go, as they pleased. As those interested in this matter know, it was felt by the Government that it wouldbe grossly unfair to treat one civil servant in Department A differently from another in Department B, and if controls had to be imposed, it was essential that they should be evenly applied over the whole of nonindustrial Civil Service staffs. Therefore,the plan, which had been one the trade unions themselves were willing to accept, fell through.
In the early part of this year, before the war in Europe came to an end, it was felt that this could not go on and that, when the war came to an end, there would, unless there was some control, inevitably be a lot of people wishing to leave who would have to be kept if vital services were hot to run the risk of falling down entirely for lack of adequate staff. The war in Europe ended rather suddenly, and that wasthe reason why further consultations were not entered into between the two sides. In addition, apart from that, there had in the previous years been ample consultations on the whole matter, and the Treasury was well aware of the view held by the NationalWhitley Council on the staff side. Nevertheless, I think the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer explained, to a deputation which came to see him and which included, amongst other representatives, my hon. Friend behind me, exactly the circumstance why this Order had to be promulgated without further consultation with the unions. On 13th December the Minister of Labour announced in this House certain new Regulations dealing with people now under the various Essential Work Orders, and made it clear that what he said applies to the civil servants who come

under this particular Order, as well as those others who are under the Essential Work Orders. He made it clear that Essential Work and similar Orders must remain, for the time being, in certain industries and services We feel that the Civil Service is one of those, and that it is impossible to put it among those which are ranked as less important and to which the Essential Work Order need not apply.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Is it not the case that in the announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour the other day, control was lifted from all men above 30?

Mr. Hall: My right hon. Friend went on to say that there were certain essential services to which the Order must continue to apply. As far as the Civil Service is concerned, that is the present situation. It is true that there are 700,000 or more non-industrial civil servants, two-thirds of whom are temporary. The House will therefore realise that there are nearly half a million temporary civilservants employed by the Government and subject to this particular Order. A number of Ministries have to depend almost completely upon these temporary civil servants. For instance, 98 per cent. of the staff of the Ministry of Food are temporaries, and almost the same percentage are temporaries at the Ministry of Fuel and Power and one or two other of the new Departments. The Post Office has had a tremendous amount of work thrown on to it during the war and it still has a great deal of additional work whichit would not have in normal times, such as the payment of demobilisation benefits and other gratuities. In one direction and another, the Post Office has had, during the war and since the war, a great deal of extra work to do, and for this work it must have staff. There was a time during the war when it appeared that, owing to the lack of staff, many of the functions which the Post Office performs would break down altogether. That danger has passed, and we have got to see that it does not recur. I would like also to remind my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby that without this Order it would be impossible to switch people from one Department to another when some Departments, as is now the case, come to an end, and others begin to expand. All of us hate controls, and


all of us want to see this type of control come to an end at the earliest possible moment; but it is impossible for the Government to carry on vital services at the present time without the assistance of this Order.
There are one or two points that were made by the hon. Member with which I would like to deal in conclusion. He said that there was no prospect for many of the temporaries now in the Civil Service to remain, and that as they were tied It was impossible for them to look outside. That may very well be so, but unfortunately it does not apply only to people in the Civil Service. There are men and women in the other Services who are equally tied.

Mr. W. J. Brown: This Order covers every man and woman in the public service up to the age of 60 years. We are not keeping men in the army up to the age of 60 years, nor are we keeping women in industry.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: There are people in the fighting services who are over 30 and there are a very large number who are below 30, and there is nodoubt that they are under the same disadvantage as the people to whom my hon. Friend refers in that they are not at liberty yet to seek the job which will offer them the best terms and security of tenure.

Mr. Harold Maemillan: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point might I ask a question? He referred to the analogy between the men and women in the Fighting Services and those in the Civil Service. Is it proposed to have any kind of demobilisation scheme for the Civil Service upon the analogyof the Fighting Services, or are the people in the Civil Service, whether they would have been in groups one to 10, whether they are old and have long service, and so on, to remain indefinitely?

Mr. Speaker: I hope the hon. Member will not be led into the details of demobilisation. Many hon. Members have already waited a long time to discuss the next subject.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: There is, in one sense, no analogy whatever between the Fighting Services and the Civil Service. I was quoting from the ex-Chancellor who said that it would be unfair to treat the Civil Service better than the Fighting Services

were being treated. The real analogy is not between those in the Fighting Services and those in the Civil Service, but those who are now subject to Essential Work Order controls, and those in the Civil Service.

Mr. Harry Wallace: Might I ask my hon. Friend to clear up this point? A person employed in the Post Office as a temporary officer has no prospect of permanent work in the Post Office. He may be anxious to get back to another job somewhere. He is being held in the Post Office and he cannot go. He is in a very different position under the Essential Work Order.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: People are held under an Essential Work Order, and they will continue to be held. Make no mistake about that. What my hon. Friend and those shouting with him are asking us to do, is to put the Civil Service in a class by themselves.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. W. J. Brown: That is nonsense.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: We have to think of the vital services of this country. The Ministry of Food, to mention no others, is at the moment absolutely dependent on the temporary Civil Service. Nearly 98 per cent. of their staff is temporary. If this Order went, with the knowledge that we all have of the desire on the part of industry generally to get staff, particularly typing and shorthand and clerical staff, I am afraid a large number of them would leave, and the very first to cry out would be Members of this House who come down here,day after day, putting Questions on the Order Paper, wanting to know why this, that or the other has not been done.

Mr. Kendall: Is it not a fact that all women, other than nurses, now in industry are free to take up any job? Certainly that applies to typists in industry.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I do not think that is so, but the analogy between the ordinary woman in industry and those in the Civil Service is not as close as some hon. Members may imagine from my earlier remarks. We have to realise that, if we allow complete freedom to women in. the Civil Service, as in other industries, we would find ourselves in difficulties. The


hon. Member for Rugby said that the National Service officer was not impartial. That is not true. From the experience we have had of the National Service officer, although he ranks, in fact, as a civil servant, he does not use that fact to prevent his being impartial. He does frequently give the civil servant the benefit of the doubt, and, if there is any doubt about it,there is always the Ministry of Labour Tribunal to which the civil servant can go in the last resort. I am sorry to have taken so long, but I feel that it has not been entirely my fault. I am sorry I am unable to accept my hon. Friend's request, although we hope that, quite soon, we shall be able to annul this Order and allow the "temporaries" to choose their own jobs.

PAPER SUPPLIES (ALLOCATION)

4.17 p.m.

Lieut. -Colonel Derek Walker-Smith: " Per ardua ad astra." I regard myself as fortunate in being able to raise this question this afternoon, even at this late hour— fortunate in the occasion, because I think the approach of Christmas may do something to soften even the harsh austerity of the Board of Trade. Fortunate, too, in the subject, because I know I can rely on the traditional friendliness of the House towards literature and the Press for general sympathy in this matter. I shall give a necessarily sketchy background of the relevant position in regard to paper today. I am forced to take newspapers and books separately, because, as the House will be aware, the two subjects are really governed by very different considerations.
Before the war, the annual consumption of newsprint for papers and weekly periodicals was about 1,256,000 tons.Today, based on a weekly average of 5,750 tons, the annual average is 299,000 tons. Even this steep declension to 22½per cent.of the prewar total is eclipsed by the shrinkage of the amount of paper for the popular daily newspapers. They are reduced from a prewar issue of 24 pages, to a present size of four pages; that is to say, they are cut to one-sixth of their prewar total. People hold various views about the desirability of popular daily

newspapers, but I think the House will recognise that they hold their position by the same title as Members of this House; that is to say, by the will of the majority. Indeed, their mandate is rather better than that of which we sometimes hear, because it was given, not in the gratuitous exercise of the suffrage, but in good hard currency.
I should like to review the sources and derivation of this newsprint. Before the war, of this 1,250,000 tons, 372,000 tons came from Canada and Newfoundland, 78,000 tons from Scandinavia and the balance of 800,000 tons by way of pulp from Scandinavia to be made into paper in the mills in this country. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman who is to reply will have some observations to make regarding the special difficulties of those countries today. Before I come to that, I would like to refer to the stocks of newsprint and pulp at present held in this country. I understand that there are 136,000 tons of newsprint in this country at the present time; that is to say, on the present basis of consumption, 24 weeks' supply.I understand, too, that the stocks of pulp held at mills in this country is the greatest total in history; and I shall be grateful if the hon. Gentleman will confirm or correct those figures.
So much for newsprint. With regard to books, the position, as I say, is different in three main respects. First, the quality and the derivation of the paper is different. Book paper, as the House will know, is made from straw, and the best book paper is that made from esparto grass from North Africa— not, unfortunately, at present being imported. Secondly, the position is different because, in regard to books, the paper position is a much smaller element of the whole problem. I think it was on the 27th October last that the quota of paper for books was raised from 50 per cent. of the 1939 reference period to 65 per cent.; and therefore, much more has been done in regard to books than in regard to newspapers— perhaps because the problem is so much smaller. The main problem in book production now is less the question of paper than the question of cloth and labour for binding. The third main difference is that the scope of the problem of books is so much smaller than that of newspapers because 65 per cent. of the pre-war quota of paper for books amounts to a total— and I include here for the sake of sim-


plicity what is known as the Moberley Pool— of 37,000 tons; whereas a mere 22½ per cent. of the newspaper total is 299,000 tons, which shows how much smaller is the book problem than the newspaper problem.
Because these problems are different, I have different suggestions to put to the Minister. In respect of books, I ask him simply to keep the matter under vigilant and sympathetic review, to urge upon the Minister of Labour the necessity of providing labour for the printing and binding of books, and to be prepared at such a time to restore the pre-war paper quota as the conditions justify it. In regard to newspapers I make this specific recommendation, that the Minister should authorise the doubling of four-page daily newspapers. I do not know whether, even if circumstances permitted, there would be any intention or desire on the part of newspapers ever to go back to 24 pages. I should imagine not. There have been certain lessons, by way of compression, conciseness and streamlining, which have been learned from austerity. I am satisfied that those lessons are satisfactorily learned now, and that an eight-page daily newspaper would be an acceptable golden mean between the two extremes. Iwould like to say here that, so far as I am told—I am not sufficiently in the minds or the economic counsels of newspaper proprietors to say with any degree of precision—I understand that economically, at any rate on the short view, it would not pay newspapers to double their size from four to eight pages. In any case, I am not concerned with that; I am not concerned with whether ii pays the newspapers or not. What I am satisfied of is that it would pay the public, and that is why I urge thatcourse upon the hon. Member.
May I, briefly, give the reasons for which I urge these courses upon the Minister? Those reasons are threefold. They are reasons deriving from our export trade, reasons of culture, and reasons regarding the efficient working ofdemocracy. In so far as export is concerned, this has a dual aspect Books are in themselves a valuable and desirable export. Further, the advertisement, direct and indirect, that we gain from books and newspapers is a highly important element in the restoration of the full activity of our export trade. I cannot,

of course, comment on all these matters in detail, but they constitute, as the Minister will recognise, a very desirable form of trade, because the deraand already exists, if we can satisfy it. The raw material in a book is only 10 per cent of the total value of the export, which makes it a peculiarly good form of export at the present time. With regard to the general theme of advertising, direct and indirect, I am sure that the House will appreciate that American books, periodicals, and magazines naturally "push "—if I may employ a colloquialism—American ideas of commerce and American equipment, machinery and so on. If the Government are serious about this export drive, about which we have heard so much, they will not neglect the opportunity of "pushing" British ideas, British equipment and British technology, upon the markets of the world. I ask the Minister to believe that our books and newspapers can be the bagmen of our commerce, as they should be of our ideas. I ask him to assist in putting them on the road and to help them in their travels.
With regard to the cultural aspect, it is not, I think, necessary to say more than a word, because I am sure that the House will be united on the importance of this. I do not for a moment suggest that if more paper were made available, it would necessarily lead to a proportionate increase in the production of books of permanent literary value. I observe, perhaps, a blush on the faces ofsome hon. Members opposite who practice authorship. But I take my stand on these two propositions: that the more paper there is, the more likelihood there is of books of permanent value being printed; and the more paper there is, the greater the safeguardof continuance of publication of the classics. The difficulty that now arises is that, with their present amount of paper, publishers publish only the works of established authors whose good will they wish to retain, in the hope of better days; and new authors and dead authors come a very poor second. I hope that we may not reach a point when the classics will go steadily out of print, and that a generation will grow up which is denied access to the right of way of our traditional English literature. English books and papers are also required in libraries in the far parts of the world, and this is a big point. I


understand, for example, that the University of Hong Kong is waiting for English books in order to reopen its library, and cannot obtain them.There is an opportunity for putting forward our culture and way of life which should not be lost. As for periodicals, if we do not have sufficiently good periodicals, we lose the export market and the home market. We surrender it, as we have surrendered to the domination of American films; and we are again in danger that the new generation will be merely imitative and living on secondhand imported culture.
My last reason is with regard to the efficient working of democracy. It is, I think, necessary in order to have a complete working of democracy that people should have as full as possible a knowledge of what is going on in public affairs. It is impossible for the most conscientious and ingenious editorial staff to provide adequate Parliamentary reportingor presentation of news with the paper now available. We have with us, although not of us, a distinguished assembly of talent in the Press Gallery, which, if given the tools, could, I am sure, do a great job for the British public; but it is not really possible with the small amount of paper now available. It is not enough to have a free Press; you must have a full Press as well, in order that all points of view may be canvassed and known to the British people. There is, I am convinced, at this time, a larger interest in Parliamentary and political matters than ever before, but never before have they been so sparsely catered for.
I am not going to commit the fault against which every young legal aspirant is warned, of leaping before he comes to the stile. I think it likely, however, that when the hon. Gentleman comes to reply, he will say that whereas he accepts in principle a good deal of what I have said, it would be unwise for him to dispose of his reserves of paper until he is more certain that he can effect their replacement. He will most likely refer to the difficulties of exchange in Canada, and the unwillingness of the Swedes to export pulp to us, unless they can be satisfied that we can export to them the coal, cotton, woollen goods and motor cars which they need.
All I will say is that we now have this American loan, or are about to have it;

and it will be an early test of the advantages which we were led to believe were to come from it. As this Government have committed themselves to a big drive for exports, it would be a sorry thing if the hon. Gentleman came down to this House today and was unable to reassure the Swedes that, within a measurable distance of time, we shall be able to export these things to them in return for the importation ofpaper or pulp. I apologise for detaining the House so long, as I know there are many who wish to contribute to this Debate. I would, however, say in conclusion that I do not ask for these things as a Christmas present to the book trade or the newspapers. I put it on a higher ground. I ask the hon. Gentleman to open the gate that will lead to great advantages, economic, cultural and political, for the people of this country.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: I will try to be brief, but there are some comments I would like to make on the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Hertford (Lieut.-Colonel Walker-Smith). This subject needs to be more carefully examined than he suggests. There is a great campaign going on in this country at present, run by the great newspaper proprietors, to get a bigger release of newsprint. The hon. and gallant Member for Hertford says that he is not in the councils of these newspaper proprietors. Perhaps he is possessed of some psychic powers, because the remarks he made would not be viewed by them with disfavour. He is proposing as an immediate measure that the size of newspapers should be doubled, and the book trade of which he spoke so eloquently is only to be given sympathetic consideration later in the year. Finally, he tells us how well these papers will report Parliament. I think it would be altogether wrong if this question of the newsprint supplies in this country—and we all hope that they will increase—were dictated by the pressure of the campaigns of the big newspaper proprietors.
Firstly, I do not believe it is altogether a bad thing that newspapers have been reduced in size. It has reversed the position of the advertiser as against the newspaper. The power of the advertiser has gone during the war. We all remember that before the war one reason why newspapers ran their ridiculous


campaign that peace was going on for ever and ever, and that we need not worry, was that they wanted to maintain the good will of the advertisers, who believed that such sunshine propaganda was very good for them. Moreover, it is a complete fallacy to suppose, as the hon. and gallant Member suggested, that a reduction in the number of pages of newspapers represents a reduction in the number of words those papers are able to print. Owing to technical improvements during the war, the number of pages to which newspapers have been reduced is not a fair indication at all. Probably the popular newspaper has on one page today three times as many words as was the case before thewar. It would be a bad thing to restore the conditions we had in the big newspaper trade before the war. The freedom of the Press does not include the right of big newspaper proprietors to distribute free mangles, free saucepans and free kitchen sets to their enthusiastic and devoted readers.
A great deal of humbug is talked in this House about how these big newspapers want to have more paper in order to report the proceedings of this House properly. A great deal of nonsense is now printed in those papers which could be dispensed with if they wished to find more space for printing the proceedings of this House. Moreover, many of them do not make any attempt to print the affairs and the proceedings of this House properly. There was an example, which I take at random, from the "Daily Express." A few weeks ago the "Daily Express" reported a Debate in this House on the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Bill and we were told that a great discussion took place on the subject of liberty. The "Daily Express" devoted 90 lines of their report to the case of the Opposition, and exactly one line to the Home Secretary's reply. Even if you double the size of the newspapers, the Home Secretary is only going to get two lines, instead of one. I suggest that thereshould be a system of priorities for releasing this newsprint. First of all the limitation on the reprint of Hansard—the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) referred to it the other day in a Question to which he received an unsatisfactory reply—should be removed, so that M.Ps. would have the power to distribute, not only their own speeches, but the speeches

of other hon. Members freely in their constituencies. That would be much better than allowing the "Daily Express" to give continual distorted accounts of what takes place.

Lieut.-Colonel Walker-Smith: The hon. Member might bear in mind that: the "Express '' newspapers may have altered since he left them.

Mr. Foot: Yes, there has been a terrible deterioration.

Mr. Bowles: They have got new contributors.

Mr. Foot: Next on this list of priorities, I suggest that consideration should be given to books, and particularly children's books. It is quite true, as has been said, that the main consideration limiting the production of books is the lack of labour, but we all hope that will be overcome; in a few months time at any rate, and when it is overcome we want to make sure that there is a big supply of paper for books.
Thirdly, I believe that before consideration is given to the big London daily newspapers, consideration should be given to weekly and provincial newspapers. This dangerous trend towards monopoly and combines in the newspaper trade; has infiltrated into the weekly and provincial trade as well, but it still remains the fact that there is a much greater diffusion of ownership in the weekly and provincial newspaper business than in the big London newspaper business. I believe it would be perfectly proper on the part of the Government, in the interests of liberty, when they are disposing of this newsprint, to say that the newsprint increase of supplies shall go to provincial and weekly newspapers and that special consideration shall be given to those newspapers which can show that they are not tied up with any combine and to cases where a provincial newspaper is a genuine provincial newspaper, run by the people in that city. They ought to have prior rights over those mammoth combines, built up by big newspaper proprietors.

Mr. Galleicher: What about the "Daily Worker "?

Mr. Foot: I am in favour of the "Daily Worker "having more newsprint, because they are not a combine and, much as I dislike most of their views, they have every right to bigger supplies.
We had a Debate in this House the other day about the film industry. Hon. Members opposite who pretend they are so much in favour of maintaining the liberties of the people were unanimous—or almost unanimous—there were one or two honourable exceptions—in voting for this giant monopoly.Sooner or later, if we believe in freedom, we shall have to fight this monopoly, and I am sorry the Government have not shown any attempt to do so. I hope the Government will have better luck in fighting the big combines in the newspaper industry. The great traditions of British journalism were not built up by the Northcliffes, the Rothermeres and the Beaverbrooks, but by the William Cobbetts, and the William Hazlitts and the Jonathan Swifts, and all those great writers, who knew what they fought for, andloved what they knew. I hope that the Government will make a much better stand in fighting the newspaper proprietors, than they have made in fighting the film monopolists.

4.40 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Ellis Smith): I am disappointed at the limited time at our disposal, but it is not my responsibility. I would like all desirous of taking part in the Debate to have an opportunity of doing so. However, it is necessary today that we should get the facts on record. A controversy has developed around this issue, and, in order that opinion may be formed, it is necessary to state the facts. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened this Debate was largely preaching to the converted, so far as the Government are concerned. With regard to his suggestions concerning books, we have as much sympathy as he has with the case for books, and the same applies to his remarks on exports and on culture. I would say, in connection with his observations on China and the Chinese students, that I happen to be very closely in touch with hundreds of Chinese students, and I know the good will which exists between them and our own country. So far as that matter is concerned, we go out of our way to meet his appeal.
With regard to his request that more space should be at the disposal of the Press for reporting the proceedings in Parliament, I hope that when paper is available, the Press of this country will

devote more space to reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Those hon. Members who have spent some time in this House, and particularly those on this side who were in a minority for so many years, cannot forget the small amount of reporting of Parliament which has been done by the big daily newspapers in this country for a long time past. If newspaper proprietors have now reformed, and if it is their desire that more space shall be devoted to Parliamentary reports of proceedings, no one will be more pleased than the present Government and hon. Members on this side of the House.
The hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) made a very well informed speech, as we should expect him to do, because he is very familiar with the industry it self. He may have had to obtain his livelihood through the Press; that is nothing to be ashamed of. That applies to many other hon. Members who are now interrupting and smiling. Therefore, if anything is to be said about my hon. Friend hon. Members must not object if I say it about others.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Could the hon. Gentleman arrange for some more paper to be supplied to the "Daily Herald" in order that we may read contributions from somebody other than the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot)?

Mr. Ellis Smith: I think the hon. Member writes a weekly feature article, and hon. Members may depend upon it, that it must be giving satisfaction to the editor of the "Daily Herald."

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: He has a contract.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Even if he has, he is not the only one who has got a contract. The only difference between some of us and certain hon. Members opposite is that many of us have had to work for our living for many years.
We can now reveal the facts about the supply of paper, and I do so in order that when discussions take place in future, they can take place upon the basis of the facts. I consider that these facts are indicative of Britain's economic position which was brought about by our mighty contribution to the recent war, and I only wish that people living in other parts of the world paid more regard to the strain


under which the British people have lived during the past seven years. We shall get over that. The mood of our people is such, and many of us have such confidence in our people, that we shall get over our present economic difficulties, but it is going to mean a gigantic effort.
Let me deal with the facts in order that they can be put on record. Dealing first with periodicals, the quantity generally allowed at present is 28½ per cent. of the amount used in the 12 months before 31st August, 1939. Additional paper is given in a number of cases, either where the publisher concerned earlier in the war reduced the quantity used in some of his periodicals for the benefit of other publications issued by him, or because of the importance and situation of the individual periodical. For example, during the war, in the case of the agricultural industry, we gave more paper in order to do justice to that important industry; and special consideration has also been given to— and this answers one of the points that the hon. Member made—and extra paper allocated to, those periodicals dealing with the export trade. The present consumption is 78,000 tons a year, as compared with the estimated prewar figure of 250,000 tons, which is approximately 31 per cent, of the prewar consumption.
The general consumption level was put up in November, 1943, from19½ per cent, to 21⅜ per cent., and this was followed by further increases in November, 1944, and July, 1945, when the figure became 23 per cent. With the end of the war and an improvement in supplies the general allocation was increased in November of this year to 28½ per cent., and additional supplies were provided for export purposes, bringing the total allocation to 31 per cent. of the prewar figure.
This is the position with regard to newspapers. The supply of paper available is allocated by a committee of publishers on a basis which was devised by the publishers themselves and approved by the Ministry of Supply in the early part of 1940. The quantity at present consumed is 290,000 tons a year as compared with the estimated pre-war figure, of 1,100,000 tons, equivalent to approximately 26 per cent. of the pre-war consumption. During the war the quality was continuously reduced, bringing the figure down to 20.7 per cent. Of pre-war in February, 1943. In order to reach

this level and yet maintain a reasonably adequate distribution the newspapers reduced their sizes very considerably, the large-sized penny dailies becoming four pages only. This is the minimum size which can properly be printed, consisting as it does of a single double sheet. Corresponding reductions were made in the sizes of the smaller sized penny and of the weekly papers. The Services and public demand for copies of the daily newspapers became such that in September, 1943, existing consumption was increased by 11.5 per cent. to provide additional copies only, and a subsequent increase of 5 per cent. was given in June, 1944, bringing the consumption up to nearly 24 per cent. of pre-war.
With the approach of the end of the war in Europe a further small increase was allowed, and in order to provide additional copies for news of the General Election 10 per cent. more paper was allowed, giving a total permitted consumption today of nearly 27 per cent. of the pre-war figure. The consumption is not uniformly restricted for the different classes of newspapers.

Mr. Bartlett: On a point of Order. May I point out that the Minister is reading a speech containing a great number of figures which everybody knows? We know perfectly well that we have four page papers. The Member is not in any way answering the Debate. Will he answer the points which have been made in the Debate?

Mr. Ellis Smith: I am not one who believes in interjections of that kind. I am not complaining, but I do not think an hon. Member should make an interjection and then smile.

Mr. Bartlett: If the hon. Gentleman does not want me to smile, I will not. I am normally a good tempered person and, therefore, I smiled.

Lieut. - Commander Joynson - Hicks: Perhaps I could put the question differently. The figures the hon. Gentleman has been giving us are precisely, word for word, the figures which the President of the Board of Trade gave in answer to Questions.

Mr. Ellis Smith: There has been a great deal of controversy over this issue. Many questions, as the hon. and gallant Gentle-


man said, have been put in this House, and I have gone out of my way to put the facts on record today so that, from now onwards, when discussion takes place it can take place on the facts. For that reason I took the line I have taken.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Further to the point of Order. Would the hon. Gentleman say whether he has finished with the points put to him on exports, because they have not been answered? It is the most serious situation in the whole of Europe and we want a reply. With the exception of exports to Denmark, no British books are going into Europe.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I am not responsible for the limited time. I began by saying we are restricted for time, especially when it is considered what a big issue is involved. I was going to put the facts on record, but if hon. Gentlemen do not want that, I am quite prepared to take notice of the wish of the House. I was going on to say that local newspapers receive a larger allocation of paper, in relation to what they received prewar, than the national newspapers. In the basic period, the consumption by local newspapers had not been reduced so severely as that of national newspapers. In view of the urgent necessity for restricting imports as far as possible, it would not be possible, at present, to justify a large expenditure of foreign currency in obtaining additional supplies of paper, in order to bring up the consumption of reading matter to the pre-war level. I am purposely missing out a good deal of material that I wanted to place on record because of the irritability of several hon. Members who are obviously desirous of taking part in the Debate.

Mr. Bartlett: On a point of Order. Did the hon. Gentleman say "irritability "? I merely asked for information, and hon. Members want some information. Surely, it is not "irritability" to make that request.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: Further to that point of Order. Is it in order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for a Minister first to lecture us on smiling, and then to complain of our being irritable? Cannot he make up his mind?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): One of the charges is singularly appropriate at this season of the year.

Mr. Ellis Smith: If paper supplies are increased, the allocation will be stepped up even further. In the case of newspapers, any additional supplies must be substantial, because any increase in their size means that a four-page daily paper must be increased to six or eight pages.
An increase of approximately 50 per cent., or 100 per cent., of the present consumption, is therefore necessary, and this requires a quantity of the order of either 150,000 tons or 300,000 tons a year. It would be desirable to increase supplies for periodicals in line with the newspapers if this were possible. The public importance of making increased supplies of paper available generally for these purposes is fully appreciated. It raisesat this stage issues of currency as well as difficulties of supply. On the raw material side, the full quantities of pulp available for the production of newsprint have been acquired, but the future position depends largely upon developments in Northern Europe, where shortage of coal, labour, power and fuel, limit production. It is too early to forecast the prospects of increasing newsprint production in this country in the latter part of 1946. There is a general shortage of supplies of foreign newsprint available for export, although it may be possible to import some additional quantities. This question will be reviewed at a later date, when the currency position is clearer.
The Government will take note of this Debate and of the feeling of the House and, early next year, further consideration will be given to the issues raised, in conjunction with our other needs. We have to work— I would emphasise this point— towards a balanced economy, in order to obtain the best results from our supplies and resources. With regard to books for educational purposes, those who are producing them can already have access to the Moberley Committee, which considers requests for extra paper and makes increased allocations in approved cases. I have endeavoured, in the limited time available, to put the facts upon record. Unfortunately, because of the limited time, I have not been able to put the whole of them on record, If this


matter is raised again we shall be only too pleased to face the position and deal with it more satisfactorily,

4.56 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: The hon. Gentleman has really done us and the hon, and gallant Gentleman who raised this question an injustice, in not referring either to the numerous arguments that were advanced, or to the one decisive factor, which is labour. This is not a question of paper shortage but of labour. That is the one question which the hon. Gentleman ignored throughout his speech. I ask him— I know he cannot speak again in this Debate— to bear in mind, from the point of view of the Government, that that is a matter which will have to be faced if this matter is raised later.

Mr. Ellis Smith: If the House will for give me—

4.57 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser (Lons-dale): I would make the plea that, when increasing paper allocations, the Government should have in mind the claims of all industries who use paper. The newspaper industry is not the only one, although I agree that it is supremely important. I hope that the Government will have regard to that fact and will bear in mind that many industries depend for their development, and indeed for their rehabilitation, upon the

use of paper. Any increase ought: to be a fair increase all round.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Inthe half minute that remains I should like to bring to the attention of the Minister the fact that 44,000 standard books have gone completely out of print and that 8,000 manuscripts are now waiting. The number of skilled printers and binders is likely tobe 10,000 fewer than before the war. Never, even at the highest peak before the war, did we produce more than 16,000 books per year, but 52,000 are waiting now. That will show the hon. Gentleman the urgency of the question. Only one country in Europe has a regular book trade with this country, and that is Denmark; there is possibly also Sweden. There is a hope for Holland. Canada is almost a lost market. In America, no copyright now exists for British books. This matter is very urgent, and that is why we should very much like to have a further Debate on the subject when we resume.

Mr. Driberg: In the ten seconds that remain, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, may I wish you, Mr. Speaker, and the staff of the House a merry Christmas?

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at One Minute to Five o'Clock, till Tuesday, 22nd January, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.